I was doing some giffing and basically re-watched Thor for the purpose (like it was a sacrifice, haha), and I just realised something that gives me new heartache.
Look at this gif:
When Thor broke the Bifrost, he and Loki went flying into the air and would have both fallen into the Void if Odin hadn’t caught them. Thor had no idea – he just couldn’t know – that Odin was going to grab Thor’s leg and save both brothers from dying/becoming lost in the space-time continuum. Still, Thor grabbed Gungnir, for which Loki was trying to reach in some desperate attempt to save his life. Thor still wanted to save Loki, after everything that had happened, and Thor didn’t have much hope, but he saw Loki falling underneath him, trying to get a hold of anything, and they both went for the staff, Loki to save himself, Thor to save Loki, even when he had no way of knowing it was even going to work. But fuck, this hurts the man. Thor tried to be there for his little brother when everything was literally and figuratively falling apart around them, and by the Norns, they might both die, but they’ll die holding that staff together and Thor will die trying to save Loki.
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.
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.
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?
Well, as many of my readers/blog followers know, I think there are ways to square the tragic Shakespearean anti-villain in Thor with the (apparently) flamboyant sexy bad guy in The Avengers, and my longest ongoing work of fanfiction is an effort to do just that. Loki’s time in the Void definitely changed him; it hardened him in certain ways, but clearly he has also fallen under Thanos’s power in some way or other and remains vulnerable. His loyalty to his family and Asgard (though not Odin) was also recoverable, apparently, so whatever happened didn’t completely turn him evil.
Whedon was deliberately leaving open a possibility for redemption by showing Loki as under threat from Thanos, and not just violent and power-mad but fearful. He also showed that Loki was conflicted, and genuinely tempted by Thor’s offers of affection and salvation. Ultimately, I think Whedon came closer than anyone else to approximating the classical tone of the first Thor, though The Avengers was more epic than tragedy.
“I don’t start the film with him like immediately gone to the dark side. I think it’s good to see that Loki is genuinely Thor’s brother and there is a complicated relationship there. So that it isn’t just like…he isn’t just an out and out villain. He isn’t all black. (…) I think it’s really interesting to see Loki’s actions from his perspective and he’s just someone who becomes more and more damaged by, I think, a sense of isolation from his family and a sense of…it’s kind of a deep loneliness. I think when the world makes you feel rejected, you bite back. And I think over the course of the film that’s what you see in Loki. He feels continually cast out by different sets of people and his brother particularly and at a certain point he’s pushed too far and he comes back with a vengeance. – TH
@foundlingmother, I’m thinking there are some people who need to be REMINDED of this… But I guess they can always say that Tom Hiddleston’s interviews don’t count as canon (even if other interviews more amenable to their position do) and he’s just biased.
I think it would have been cute, but I don’t know that it would make a difference.
It’s not like Thor doesn’t already have scenes that are meant to show Loki being mocked or in Thor’s shadow (admittedly some of the best examples were cut, but I know people who believe Loki’s got no legit problems who’ve seen those scenes). People will write anything off to fit their idea of what a character’s about.
Some hate for Loki comes as a reaction to people who don’t acknowledge his faults. It puts a lot of thoughtful people in the middle of a big fight over the character. We expect him to be held accountable, so we hate him, and we ask people to recognize the motivations for his crimes as something more then “he’s just evil”, so we’re stanning for him or woobifying him.
Part of why so many people have decided Loki’s a shallow, lazy, power hungry narcissist is Thor: Ragnarok being deemed the best Thor movie (I know this because I’ve followed the same people, and I know that pre-Ragnarok’s release they saw Loki’s character slightly more sympathetically). I take issue with this because it’s the third Thor movie, and it completely reboots both Loki and Thor’s character arcs. The characterization just doesn’t flow well with the other movie in the MCU. People will continue to hold it up as the pinnacle of Thor and Loki, and retroactively apply the character traits they present in Ragnarok to the other movies, despite that not being how time and story structure works.
What I’m saying is that people who overlook Loki’s motivations aren’t concerned about logic or canon. They may say they are, but they’re really not. They just want a simple heroes and villains narrative, and that’s not what Thor is. It’s not even what Ragnarok is, truth be told, but somehow the movie successfully convinced people that a mean Thor was a hero (maybe because he keeps saying he is–people seem to believe everything that comes out of Thor’s mouth even when he’s demonstrably wrong and/or overreacting because he’s upset).
Hi Anon, are you here to join the club of racists (apparently) who don’t understand why we’re supposed to like Taika Waititi’s interpretation of Thor? Welcome!
Honestly, I think the best thing you can do is to watch the other movies if you haven’t. In the first movie, Thor starts out as an arrogant warrior who loves to fight and thinks violence is the solution to every problem, but his father strips him of his powers and banishes him to Earth to learn humility. Aside from the arrogance and eagerness to fight, he’s very loyal to his friends and he has a gallantry about him… well, he’s representative of an ancient warrior culture, really. He loves to fight and feast and flirt; he’s a bit bombastic, but has a sense of chivalry; he picks on little bro Loki sometimes, he can be a bit of a jock/bully, but he loves and trusts Loki (more than he should) and isn’t willing to give up on him even when he’s descended into madness and is doing horrible things.
Thor tells the story of Thor’s maturation into a more patient and self-sacrificing person, and he continues that process of maturation through the other movies we see him in: The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. He’s still a little too ready to solve problems by hitting things in The Avengers, still a little arrogant and Homeric-warrior-bro (he’s Achilles, basically), but he’s getting better, learning how to be more of a team player. In TDW and AOU he becomes progressively more serious and thoughtful, largely because terrible things keep happening in his life… he still has a sly sense of humor, and he spends much of AOU subtly trolling the human Avengers, but he’s also become very canny and perceptive.
Ragnarok just gave him a complete personality makeover with almost no regard for the way he’d been portrayed before. He was never that inarticulate – the Asgardians used to speak in an elevated, slightly archaic register, the way they do in the comics – and he was never as… mean as he is in Ragnarok. I mean, he’s a bit of a douche in Thor, but the point was that he got better.
I’ve discovered there are people who believe Loki intended from the beginning of Thor to commit genocide. I don’t understand how anyone could possibly interpret the movie this way.
Here’s everything we know about Loki’s plan prior to the jaunt through Jotunheim: Loki allowed a hostile foreign power into Asgard, resulting in the deaths of the Einherjar guarding Odin’s Vault. I’ll ignore that this power’s trying to retrieve the object that will allow them to revitalize their dying homeworld–Laufey probably would use it to get revenge, and
Loki didn’t let them in to help them with that. He helped them to ruin Thor’s coronation. Then, he precedes to use Thor’s militant personality against him. Thor’s chewing at the bit to go to war with Jotunheim. Loki merely states that there’s nothing Thor can do without defying their father. Not exactly a master feat of manipulation, guys. We also know Loki tells one of the Einherjar where they’re going, and tells him to go to Odin. That’s it. That’s everything. We don’t even know why Loki ruined Thor’s coronation. He tells Laufey it was for a bit of fun, and I’m actually inclined to believe that’s part of it. Personally, I headcanon he meant to demonstrate his own skills to Odin. Thor starts a war with reckless violence, and Loki ends it with careful diplomacy and manipulation. He might have been overestimating himself, but I believe that was his plan.
Why do I separate Loki’s plan into before and after Jotunheim? I would hope that’s self-explanatory, but I guess not. Loki discovers on Jotunheim that he’s a Jotun. No, it’s not confirmed until later, but this is when he realizes (because he’s not stupid). When Thor and Odin argue at the Bifrost, Thor repeats how much he’d like to wipe out the Jotunar, and Loki takes a deep breathe to calm down. Anyone who believes this realization’s anything but world shattering for Loki can unfollow me right now. Jotunar are talked about like the Asgardian equivalent of the fucking boogeyman. Loki says this. You can’t grow up in a culture so disgustingly racist and not freak out when you discover you’re part of the group their racist against. Especially when, for your entire life, your brother’s been saying how much he’d like to kill your entire race. World shattering. Any plans he had probably went out the fucking window.
I’ve got other reasons to think Loki’s plans couldn’t have been the same throughout the whole movie. First, I go back and forth on whether Loki expected Odin to cast Thor out. Even if I give people that he knew Thor would be banished, I’ve no clue how some people think Loki knew Odin would fall into Odinsleep. Frigga states in the movie that they weren’t prepared for this. Now, perhaps some people believe Loki caused it, but I don’t get that vibe whatsoever. It’s fine if you want to headcanon that, but I don’t think there’s any evidence to state with absolute confidence that’s what happened. It always seemed to me that Odin went to sleep because he’s under a lot of stress and Loki screaming at him’s the final straw. He’s been putting the Odinsleep off. That’s why he meant to make Thor king. Also, Loki seemed pretty surprised and upset Odin fell into Odinsleep, and he didn’t have an audience. He didn’t need to lie in the vault.
So when and why does he contemplate genocide? After discovering he’s a monster (his words), Loki’s initial goal to make Odin proud becomes ten times more important. Now it’s a matter of proving he’s worthy of being called Odinson. He’s also trying to kill the part of himself that he can’t accept. He murders his biological father, and states that Laufey’s death came by the son of Odin. This murder and attempted genocide are external expressions of his self-loathing. This isn’t an excuse for his behavior. He fucking kills people. He’s the villain here, and I only seek to explain his behavior. I don’t know why people hate the thought that Loki might be more complicated than a privileged pissbaby prince. He’s having an identity crisis and a mental breakdown. Also, he’s not trying to prevent Thor’s return because he wants the throne and power. He’s preventing Thor’s return because Loki’s just realized that Thor’s the real son. He already believed he couldn’t hold a candle to Thor, and discovering he’s Jotun cements that. He’ll never be Thor’s equal, in Odin’s eyes, and in his own eyes (the whole internalized racism/self-hatred things a real bitch). That breaks him.
Sidenote: I think there’s evidence to suggest Odin does hold Thor and Loki to different standards, and legitimately favors Thor (my dad had this problem of loving my twin, who’s adopted, but very clearly favoring his biological daughters, and now favoring his son above everyone). Thor and Hela get banished, whilst Loki’s punishment for similar crimes (less than Hela’s and worse than Thor’s) would have been death if not for Frigga.
My analysis is far from unique, but I had to write this because I just rewatched Thor and I’m committed to not erasing elements of Thor and Loki’s characters for the sake of the hero/villain thing. Expect a post about how Thor can be wrong (le gasp!) and is still a good person and the hero within the next few days (I’ve got to find and quote the scripts for Thor, Avengers, and TDW for that one).
Also, I wonder if some of the people who seem to ignore Loki’s internalized racism and mental health problems come from a background of reading comics? In the comics, Loki’s always known he’s a Jotun, so he doesn’t have the same identity issues, and he behaves even worse. Or maybe they just don’t like Loki or villains you can sympathize with. Those are my favorites though… *pats Magneto on the head* Is it also woobifying if I bring up that Magneto’s mutant supremacy has roots in his traumatic experiences during the Holocaust? It seems you’ll get accused of woobifying for even acknowledging canonically sympathetic villains as being anything but living garbage.
@philosopherking1887 Forgive me for @ing you, but this was inspired by the meta last night.
Anyone who seriously thinks Loki was plotting genocide from the beginning of “Thor” needs to get their eyes, ears, and brains checked. Tumblr’s black-and-white morality complex just keeps rearing its ugly head and making me hate this site more and more. (That’s the real abusive relationship here: this hellsite and any of its users who still have half a brain.)
shit, are people actually saying that? oh boy, they should be glad they weren’t here in 2012…
I think they were here in 2012-13 and that’s precisely why they’re saying it. Not because there are any good textual reasons for believing it – there aren’t – but just to set themselves apart from the unconditional Loki justifiers/woobifiers as much as possible.
Loki is the Philosopher King 