Thor was a victim of Odin’s abuse and brainwashing too, so maybe try not to blame him for thinking Loki was beyond hope because when a parent you’ve been raised to trust tells you that, you’re inclined to believe them
“Thor was a victim of Odin’s abuse and brainwashing too”
AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yeah, because being the golden child that everyone loves totally isthe same as being the scapegoat outcast whose father literally said his birthright was to die and then locked him in the dungeons for what was meant to be the rest of his life with no content with the outside world.
*snort*
Sure, Thor was totally abused too xD
Not all abuse follows the same pattern and no one is saying Thor was abused to the same degree as Loki was.
Let’s look at the 3rd child, Hela, because her abuse has most in common with Thor. Odin seemed to treat her well and judging from the friezes she uncovered, they seem to show she was respected by Asgard, ruling at Odin’s side. She was given the same weapon as Thor and raised to be a warmonger than Odin could unleash on his enemies.
But he had moulded her into a mass murderer. Do you doubt that doing that to a child is abusive?
It doesn’t excuse what she did, just as Loki’s abuse doesn’t excuse what he did, but it does help you understand why these things happened.
As for Thor, he basically got the Hela-lite treatment. He was raised to love war and fighting, he was even raised to be a cold-blooded killer (just look what he did on Jotunheim), just not to the same degree that Hela was.
Neither Thor and Hela were raised to have introspection, given the ability to question their actions, thoughts, or beliefs.
And when they did what they had been raised to do (wage war) but without Odin’s permission, both were banished.
None of his children were raised with their best interests at heart. Rather, they were turned into what Odin wanted them to be. He viewed them as extensions of himself that he could do what he wanted with, rather than as people in their own right.
Nothing about this is healthy parenting. Nothing about this raises well-rounded adults. He has damaged all his children via the emotional abuse used to turn them into what he wanted them to be.
Thor was able to overcome his abuse and become a wise, rounded adult (well, ish. He succeeded as long as you ignore the BS that was Ragnarok).
Although it wasn’t shown onscreen, Loki seems to have taken strides too, not to overcome the abuse perse, but to become his own person, who he wants to be rather than who Odin wanted him to be, or a rebellion against who Odin wanted him to be.
Some of Odin’s children received different kinds and different levels of abuse, but they were all abused.
The thing that really strikes me about this picture is how it’s similar to this one:
Right before Thor’s coronation.
Odin used his own daughter as no more than a weapon for his bloody wars. He was the mastermind, the brain, and Hela was the brawn. And he brought up his two sons to fit this exact image. Thor was supposed to be the symbol of Asgard’s physical power and Loki the advisor, the strategist. Thor was the brawn and Loki was the brain. It’s interesting how Hela and Thor, who were the muscles, both hold Mjolnir, a hammer. Odin holds Gungnir, a scepter and we know one of Loki’s preferred weapons is a scepter.
The kings wear red, the weapons wear green.
The weapons are on the right side of the kings.
The kings have wings on their helmet, the weapons only have horns.(Another interesting detail is how Odin’s helmet is the combination of Thor and Loki’s. He gave his wings to Thor and his horns to Loki)
It’s also another parallel that when the weapons get out of the kings’ control, they were cast out.
(As a side note I think I should mention that when I say Thor and Hela are the brawn I don’t mean they are stupid. They both are quite intelligent. I mean they are the stronger fire power and physical fights are what they are best at. Odin and Loki are both physically strong too but they are best at mind games and planning. Remember Hela told Loki “You sound like him?”. Because he does. He learned those skills from Odin)
So at first I was a little ??? about Hela being Thor’s sister in Ragnarok (squeezing her into the role Angela so recently acquired as their long-lost-big-sister in comics), but the more I think about it, the more I like what it does for Thor and Loki’s arc.
Thor now has two siblings who became his antagonists because of his father keeping secrets – hiding Loki’s heritage, and then hiding Hela’s existence. Which re-enforces how damaging that habit of lying and secrecy is to Asgard’s growth, as represented by Thor. Having those secrets come out and be faced is necessary for Thor’s development and maturity – confronting the sins of his father.
And for Loki – when Loki tries and fails to be a hero, he becomes a villain. He always measures himself against Thor, and then casts himself as Thor’s opposite. But with Hela showing up, suddenly the role of bad guy has been usurped by another sibling; he’s no longer the baddest Asgardian, or even the baddest of Odin’s kids. His sins are now in a whole new context, where his misdeeds are frankly small potatoes. He’s not only been outstripped as a hero by his sibling – he’s been outstripped as a villain. And that forces him to find some other measure of identity; not wholly good, not wholly evil, but something in between – something new.
Also, it re-enforces their brotherhood in an interesting way. Hela is Asgardian. Hela is Thor’s blood sibling (or at least half-sibling). And Hela is still awful. In that light, Loki can no longer ascribe his wickedness to his heritage – he isn’t evil because of some innate genetic factor, or because he isn’t Asgardian, since Hela is clearly capable of that evil despite being raised on Asgard and having Odin’s genes. And while Hela and Thor share blood, they have no kinship to speak of. Thor and Loki do, despite the lack of blood relation. They snipe and bicker like brothers throughout, and there are callbacks to their childhood and past together (the snake story, ‘get help’).
Hela’s appearance as Thor’s sister lends new context to both Thor and Loki’s relationship with each other and their family, and I think it gives us, as fandom, a lot of fresh material to play with as far as our boys’ character growth moving forward.
Loki is the Philosopher King 