Tag: the electrocution scene

Loki dropped him like 25,000 feet in a glass cage, he told him that his father was dead, he backhanded him with the destroyer, he stabbed him in the chest – on several different occasions. The fact is that had Thor not turned the tables on him in that moment that he was going to hand him back over to the grandmaster to be put back in the cage and used for his battles. Thor and Loki are called gods for a reason. And he laughed b/ he knew that Loki would get out of it like he does everything.

lucianalight:

I got this ask in response to this post.

None of the things you mentioned can be considered as torture. Loki dropped Thor with the glass cage right after he saw that Mjolnir could crack the glass. The reason Thor stopped attempting to break the glass wasn’t because the glass was unbreakable, but because the cage would fall if he continued. So Loki knew Thor could free himself before the cage hit the ground. Yes, Loki lied to Thor about Odin’s death and he almost killed him with that backhand and IMO these are very horrible and

the worst things he ever did to Thor. Still they are not torture. He broke Thor with his lies but those lies showed Thor that the consequences of his actions can be very grave. Also an argument can be made that if Loki really wanted Thor dead, he would incinerate him with the destroyer not backhand him. The only time Loki really stabbed Thor was in The Avengers. They were fighting, and it was a stab to the gut not the chest and it was with a really small blade that didn’t harm Thor that much. The stab in TDW was an illusion(again that was a stab to the gut), because when he lifted the illusion Thor’s armor was intact while in The Avengers, Thor’s armor remained torn after the stab.

No one said Thor shouldn’t have stopped Loki from betraying him. But Thor could simply make Loki unconscious with the obedience disk(I explained in this post that the device has two settings). That would be acceptable. But Thor chose to leave Loki in constant pain with the device on for an infinite amount of time. Yes, Thor and Loki are called gods and they are more durable. But just because they can tolerate more pain, it doesn’t make it ok to inflict pain on them. It’s still pain and the obedience disc is a torture device. And no Thor had no way of knowing that Loki could get out of it. In fact he knew Loki couldn’t free himself. Thor with all his power, was paralyzed by the obedience disc. Even his lightning couldn’t get him free from it. Only the control device could free Loki. And he was unable to move.

What is torture?

“The action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a
punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure
of the person inflicting the pain.”

Thor didn’t just stopped Loki’s betrayal. He inflicted severe pain on him for an infinite amount of time

as punishment for his betrayal and then had the audacity to gleefully preach Loki about growth and change and laugh at his pain.

What Thor did in TR was torture and that makes him so much ooc that I don’t consider TR Thor, the real Thor.

I think it would be appropriate to reiterate what I said in the last post linked in the above (the one arguing that the obedience disc is a torture device), so here it is again for people who don’t bother to follow links:

< I’ve been seeing a lot of people try to justify Thor* by pointing out that Loki has done worse things to him; most commonly they will cite the incident in The Avengers where Loki drops Thor out of the Helicarrier in the Hulk cage. (This is such a common move that I feel like it’s got to be in some Thor* stan/ Ragnarok defense playbook.) Here is why that comparison doesn’t accomplish what they want it to accomplish:

  1. It was entirely reasonable for Loki to think he was not endangering Thor’s life. He knew Thor could get out of the cage because he had Mjolnir with him. As far as we can tell, in Ragnarok, Thor* had no way of knowing that the first people who would happen along were Korg & co. as opposed to, e.g., Topaz, who probably would have just killed Loki while he was incapacitated. Maybe he did have some way of knowing, but this was not made at all clear in the film. So even if he didn’t think he was endangering Loki’s life, he was being culpably negligent.
  2. In The Avengers, Loki was acting as an adversary, and everyone was completely aware of that. He was trying to hamper his opponents by scattering them, and possibly to demoralize Thor by showing that he wasn’t going to get his brother back. In Ragnarok, Thor* presented what he did as some kind of “tough love” – punishing Loki “for his own good,” with the aim of getting Loki back on his side rather than (as Loki was doing in The Avengers) turning him decisively against him. If you can’t see why that’s kind of fucked up, well…
  3. Loki is clearly aware that what he’s doing in The Avengers is wrong. He hesitates before he hits the button to drop the cage, and hesitates again (with tears in his eyes, FFS!) before he stabs Thor later. He’s conflicted, and it’s not unreasonable to think he regrets hurting Thor when he’s no longer under direct threat from Thanos (his attempts at self-justification in TDW have a defensive air that make me think the lady doth protest too much). In Ragnarok, Thor* just looks smug and self-righteous about the electrocution thing, even though he’s very aware that Loki is in severe pain. >

And I’m sure I’ve said it somewhere else, but again, it doesn’t really make sense to compare the electrocution in Ragnarok to the things Loki did to Thor in Thor 1 and The Avengers because in both of the latter cases, it’s made pretty clear that Loki isn’t in his right mind. In Thor 1, Loki has pretty clearly been profoundly disturbed by the revelation that he actually belongs to a race that he has been taught all his life to hate and fear (and that Thor has twice vowed to “finish”). He is convinced that the reason Odin always favored Thor is because Loki is really Jotun, not Asgardian, so he’s desperate to prove how very Asgardian and not Jotun he really is. I agree that it’s not clear whether Loki meant to kill Thor with the Destroyer; he must have known that killing Odin’s other son wouldn’t be a great way of earning his favor. (Maybe he had it backhand rather than incinerate him so he could pass it off as an accident… or maybe he lacked commitment there too.) At any rate, he is very obviously emotionally and psychologically unwell for… over half of the movie, tbh, but it becomes increasingly obvious in the last third.

In The Avengers, Loki shows up looking like shit; his eyes are wild and hollow and he’s saying some really weird stuff. When they communicate through the scepter, the Other threatens him and he looks terrified. No, Loki wasn’t completely under Thanos’s control and maybe he bears some responsibility for getting himself into that position… but again, he’s clearly been through some shit and is under severe duress. And, as noted above, he’s conflicted about hurting Thor.

Thor* has no such excuse or explanation in Ragnarok. On the contrary; he’s presented as being fully in control, cool-headed, rational, oh-so-cleverly out-thinking his clever brother. He even thought up this scheme in advance, because he predicted that Loki would betray him (for no good reason other than it was needed as set-up for the “trickster tricked” scenario where Loki gets his painful, humiliating comeuppance). Thor*’s action is more blameworthy than anything Loki has done to him because he does it while in full possession of his faculties and shows sadistic glee at making Loki suffer.

And no, Loki has not been stabbing Thor or “trying to kill him” since they were children. Taika Waititi pulled that out of his ass. It should be obvious from Thor 1 that Thor trusts Loki, that they’ve been comrades in arms for centuries, and that Loki’s betrayal and his demand that Thor fight him come as an incredible shock. If you want to accept the stabbing-since-childhood BS as canon, then you’d better stop citing anything Loki does in Thor 1, including telling Thor their father is dead and striking him with the Destroyer, because clearly you’re ignoring what that movie established as the longtime dynamic between them. You want to pretend previous canon doesn’t exist? Then at least do it consistently.

Asgardians, Pain, and the Obedience Disk

foundlingmother:

foundlingmother:

I’ll admit right up front that I’m particularly sensitive to the argument that, if you’re able to function, your pain mustn’t really be that bad. I have had fibromyalgia since I was 8, and I was diagnosed with lupus just two weeks ago (fucking yay!). I’m in pain 24/7. My immune system attacks healthy tissue in my body. It’s fucking painful. And yet, I still function. Many people have doubted how much pain I’m in because of the myth that you can’t function when you’re in pain.

Today there was a lot of meta focused on asgardians and pain. The meta addressed people who call Thor’s use of the obedience disk on Loki torture. As goes the response to any argument that’s too pro-Loki, things quickly escalated to “he’s just mildly irritated by the obedience disk” and “Loki hasn’t experienced actual physical pain in the MCU except for maybe when he nearly died in TDW.”

*sigh*

I often state that asgardians can handle pain. That’s something I believe in. I think they respond differently to painful circumstances that would kill or severely disable a human. That’s based on evidence from the movies. Fandral’s impaled in Thor, and survives. Thor’s obviously been stabbed by Loki multiple times, and he’s fine. Both Thor and Loki have been smashed by Hulk, and both have had the obedience disk used on them, and they’re both still alive. Loki’s been in Thanos’ clutches, and he’s seemingly made a full physical recovery from that (despite looking incredibly fucked up and tripping all over himself in Avengers). For that reason, I tend to be more accepting of how physical characters get with asgardians. I forgive Loki stabbing Thor. I forgive Thor grabbing Loki by the neck and throwing him to the ground when they’re reunited in Avengers. My assumption is that asgardian culture is more permissive of acts we’d recognize as excessively violent (let’s not get into whether those acts are justified–that’s not the point) by virtue of asgardians being able to survive more.

What I mean when I say asgardians can handle pain is that they are durable. They are like Deadpool or Wolverine. Both can survive very painful, violent acts. That isn’t the same as not feeling pain.

Volstagg, when touched by a frost giant, shouts in pain. He quickly recovers from a severe case of frostbite, and is able to continue functioning, but he clearly feels the pain.

Loki is terrified of Hulk. If he doesn’t feel the pain of being smashed by Hulk, then why is he so scared of him?

Thor passes out each time the obedience disk is used on him. Loki can’t even fucking move when it’s used on him. My assumption was that Thor passes out from pain, and Loki’s in so much pain that he’s unable to function while that pain is sustained. That’s something the script states, really. It says he’s writhing in pain.

So yes, the obedience disk is a torture device. It superheats veins. I forgive Thor using it on Loki to disable him–he needs to stop Loki from betraying him. I still think Loki feels intense, sustained pain. I don’t agree that it’s just a mildly irritating device. I think Loki’s felt pain in numerous instances. Sometimes the characters inflicting that pain are justified, and sometimes they’re not. Hulk was justified. Thor was justified (for at least as long as he needed to disable Loki, and I happen to think the fact that he just leaves him disabled is ooc). Thanos wasn’t justified. Kurse wasn’t justified.

I’m kind of sick of fans not being allowed to feel uncomfortable with that scene. If people are uncomfortable watching Thor gloat over his brother’s twitching body, that seems reasonable. It bothers me that Thor uses it on Loki for the amount of time that he does (so much that I call it ooc because I don’t think Thor would torture Loki, or leave him to potentially die). It bothers me that it gets used on Thor, too.

I can’t even watch the scenes where the obedience disk gets used on Thor or Loki. I close my eyes. Watching them in pain reminds me of my own. I feel my own more keenly when I watch those scenes. I also feel very, very squeamish seeing the veins under their skin.

TL;DR: Asgardians are durable, but they still experience pain. People are entirely justified in being uncomfortable with the obedience disk. It’s very easy to interpret that device as a torture device. Please stop rolling your eyes when someone finds it uncomfortable to watch their favorite character(s) twitch in pain. Consider that your interpretation of a piece of media may not be the only “right” or even reasonable one.

The discourse. It’s back.

In all honesty, it’s wonderful, imo, if you don’t see it as torture. I’m very happy for you. Just try to empathize with why I am uncomfortable with it, and why I do see the obedience disk as a torture device.

OK, that’s where we differ. Whether or not people want to call it “torture” or “abuse” or anything in particular, I’m a little uncomfortable with people who aren’t uncomfortable with that scene. Even before I realized all of the problems with Ragnarok and its characterization of Thor, I was uncomfortable with that scene and with how smug and self-satisfied Thor looked seeing Loki’s obvious pain. It was the most obvious expression of the cruelty and lack of consideration for others that he shows throughout the movie, usually in more subtle ways.