Tag: thor meta

foundlingmother:

philosopherking1887:

yume-no-fantasy:

shine-of-asgard:

2oppositesidesof1coin:

luxury-loki:

kaori04:

shine-of-asgard:

luxury-loki:

From the director’s commentary of ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ (2017) // This film really is about them, and they resolve their differences. It’s so much better than the other two films where the main relationship was between Thor and Jane.

I’d have really loved to see this alternative version of the film. A script where Thor and Loki BOTH resolve THEIR differences, as opposed to a script where Thor reaffirms his view of what Loki should be, do and feel in order to be considered worthy by Thor’s standards. Alas, it was not to be.

I would say two other films (yes, with Jane) were like million times better in depicting brothers relationship and in developing them. Just absence of Jane won’t help you to do better job with that.

I have to disagree. I think Thor wants Loki to learn about being a trustworthy brother, and to stop this streak where he always feels the need to make a sneaky exit/betray the people trying to help him. Plus, I think in the second film, we think we’re seeing great character development for Thor and Loki, and after Loki’s death we think “Oh wow he actually died to save his brother!” but then we clearly learn he’s just pretending so that he can have the throne of Asgard. I love Loki, but we can’t for one second believe his aims in Thor: The dark world were actually good, where as in Ragnarok he actually STICKS AROUND. He helps save the day, and by the end of the film we see a Loki who’s actually proved to himself that he can be more than the god of mischief.

I do understand where you guys are coming from, but you have to remember Loki isn’t meant to be an inherently good person, if he was left to just be himself he would literally just cause non-stop trouble. Thor helps him be a better person, and he helps him in that rough/brotherly way which happens with all siblings. I know my elder sister would never sit me down nicely and tell me I was being ass hole, she’d fucking do something about it hahaha.

Anyway, I do respect your opinions and I hope you’ll respect mine, just wanted to say my piece!

I won’t be reblogging this again, but feel free to add any opinions x

I get where your coming from too and I agreed to a point. But I also agree that Loki changes based on Thor’s idea of worth. Loki never does it because he wants to and it never feels like it comes from a decision within himself. Maybe Infinity War will rectify that because I get the feeling that we will have more Loki without Thor. Also, Takia acts like he did so well with this but personally we had more interaction and them discussing family problems in the dark world then we did in Ragnarok. Remember the boat scene from the Dark World after Frigga’s death. I wanted the humor to stop for two seconds so that could happen. But no. They don’t come to any terms. Thor just let’s Loki cause Ragnarok and that’s the end of it.

This is a very good commentary, especially the distinction of the growth being self-driven as opposed to forced from the outside. It feels like Loki ends up behaving in Ragnarok because Thor essentially threatens him with disowning him as a brother once and for all (and Loki believes him). Which is worryingly enough the reason Loki was somewhat well behaved up until Thor 1. He wanted to belong and he went along with Odin’s and Thor’s wishes. So for me, in Ragnarok he circles back to being a well behaved and overshadowed second in command with a high potential of his resentment growing over years and spilling into confrontation once again. So what’s the arc? What’s his internal decision? That despite satisfaction not being in his nature and him explicitly wanting Thor’s respect he’ll now be happy with being told “maybe he’s not so bad after all”? Hmmm…

To be fair it might’ve been the only way to get through to Loki, given his wilfulness… This was the part of the script I had a problem with, though:


“I trust you, you betray me. Round and round in circles we go. See, Loki,
life is about… It’s about growth. It’s about change. But you seem to just
want to stay the same. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’ll always be
the God of Mischief, but you could be more.“ 

What bugged me was how Thor said it as if every time Loki betrayed him it had
been out of mischief, even though that clearly hadn’t been the case at all. If
we run through the ways in which Loki had “betrayed” Thor in the previous film–

1) Ruined Thor’s coronation by secretly letting the frost giants into Asgard
because he had thought Thor unworthy of the throne (which was true in
hindsight)
2) Lied to Thor about Odin dying, told Thor he could not come back to Asgard
and sent the Destroyer to attack Thor on Earth after he had learned of his heritage from Odin 
3) Wreaked havoc on Thor’s precious Earth
4) Faked his own death, exiled Odin and took over the throne 

–to me it was clear that each time Loki betrayed Thor there
was an understandable reason for it, whether it was jealousy or hurt or spite. He
was jealous of Thor, he was hurt and heartbroken and angry at being lied to
about his true heritage and birth right, he was mad, he was full of hatred for
Odin… Everything he did above was hardly attributable to his nature as the
“God of Mischief” at all, yet Thor had dismissed him as such, never
acknowledging any of the hurt and betrayal he had experienced to cause him to
turn malicious in the first place. It was just like at the beginning of the
Avengers film where he had dismissed Loki’s resentments as “imagined slights”,
and evidently this gross misunderstanding still hasn’t been resolved in this
film. 

To be honest it was odd that Thor should say that Loki “just seemed to want to stay the same” like he regarded Loki’s betrayal in this film as just
some same old mischievous behaviour that could be easily likened to his previous betrayals, because the motivations behind Loki’s actions had not been so shallow

in any of the previous films

and surely should not be generalized or written off as such. He spoke
as if Loki had always been lawless and incorrigible, when in fact he should
know full well that Loki hadn’t been like that at the beginning and just how
much Loki had changed from the baby
brother he once knew, as well as what had triggered the change–Loki most certainly didn’t turn bad for no reason.

Even though his words were meant to be used as some kind of reverse psychology
to get through to Loki, I feel like they had severely downplayed everything Loki had
gone through, which simply didn’t sit well with me because it wasn’t fair to Loki’s
character. It would’ve been nice if Thor could just acknowledge his and Loki’s
differences without belittling Loki’s values/imposing his own sense of
righteousness on Loki, like:

“Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we were going
to fight side-by-side forever, but at the end of the day you’re you and I’m me
and… Maybe there’s still good in you but… let’s be honest, our paths
diverged a long time ago.”

I would’ve liked to see him make it clear to Loki that he cared
and understood what it was that had led to Loki doing what he did, and that he respected Loki’s point of view and decisions (even if he did not approve of them), before proceeding on with the reverse psychology thing where he would let Loki know that from now
on he would no longer force him to adhere to his expectations nor try to stop him from
going anywhere he wanted. Then it’d be up to Loki to decide whether he wanted to
stay by Thor–if he chose to do so it’d entirely be out of his own accord,
as an equal and only because he cared;
not because Thor told him that he could be more, talking as though he knew better just because he stood on the moral high ground. The part with Loki abruptly betraying Thor and getting tased afterwards and the whole “God
of Mischief” talk should just be scrapped altogether, thank you very much. It was completely misleading the audience into having the impression that Loki was just a frivolous God of Mischief who liked to betray Thor for the sake of it, when his character and motivations had never been that simple and trivial.

Having said all that, I did appreciate seeing Loki returning to Thor’s side at the end and finally accepting Thor as a worthy king
after everything. Though I wasn’t exactly satisfied with how they got there, I did
have the biggest smile on my face when I was watching the “I’m here”
scene. It’s cute how Loki kept trying to push Thor away, but when Thor showed a
willingness to discard him he immediately felt wounded by it. At least they both
learnt a little something from this—for Loki it was to be more honest and to stop taking the person he cared
about and who cared about him for granted, and for Thor, well, I think the clichéd saying
goes, ‘If you love someone, set them free; if they come back, they’re yours’…

I completely agree with @shine-of-asgard​ and must strenuously disagree with @luxury-loki​‘s analysis – as well as Taika’s utterly disingenuous commentary. I’ve said this before, but @yume-no-fantasy​ articulates and explains very well the way that Ragnarok completely changes Loki’s character (or should I say “character”?) so that he becomes “lawless and incorrigible” rather than acting badly and villainously, yes – I am emphatically NOT claiming that Loki is “an inherently good person” – but from identifiable, comprehensible motivations. 

The part with Loki abruptly betraying Thor and getting tased afterwards and the whole “God of Mischief” talk should just be scrapped altogether, thank you very much. It was completely misleading the audience into having the impression that Loki was just a frivolous God of Mischief who liked to betray Thor for the sake of it, when his character and motivations had never been that simple and trivial.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is a beautiful way of putting it. 

(@illwynd​, I thought you might appreciate this too.)

I want to point to and rebut this claim from @luxury-loki in particular:

Plus, I think in the second film, we think we’re seeing great character development for Thor and Loki, and after Loki’s death we think “Oh wow he actually died to save his brother!” but then we clearly learn he’s just pretending so that he can have the throne of Asgard. I love Loki, but we can’t for one second believe his aims in Thor: The dark world were actually good

I think this is what Taika Waititi and Eric Pearson want you to think, but I absolutely do not believe this was what the creators of TDW (Markus & McFeely as screenwriters, Alan Taylor as director) had in mind. It is not clear in TDW whether Loki intended to fake his death from the time he was freed from prison, or whether he believed when he was stabbed that he was going to die, fortuitously survived, and took advantage of the opportunity. Regardless, he still acted to save Jane’s life several times; maybe he did that just to stay on Thor’s good side, but it’s still a good thing he did, and apparently the desire to stay on Thor’s good side is worthy enough to make his turnaround in Ragnarok count as a redemption. And in keeping with @yume-no-fantasy’s point about Loki’s motivations in earlier films: I believe that Loki had some comprehensible reasons for usurping the throne at the end of TDW, even though I fully acknowledge that it was not a morally good thing to do. I think he did it partly because he was pissed at Odin for lying to him, threatening to execute him, and then imprisoning him for life without once asking why he did what he did; partly because he believed, like Thor, that Odin was no longer a competent ruler (and we’ve seen Loki take action, again morally flawed but comprehensible, on that conviction before); and partly because he thought it was the best way to protect himself from Thanos (hiding in plain sight, shielding himself behind Asgard’s might, and using his position to control the disposal of the Infinity Stones). But Ragnarok completely ignores all of these explanations and decides that Loki did it just for power, self-aggrandizement, and mischievous shits and giggles. This is a bad, shallow retcon and I will never regard that interpretation as canon.

No, Taika, Thor and Loki do not reach any sort of “understanding,” because Thor never seeks to understand why Loki does what he does; and if they reach a “resolution,” it is only because Loki surrenders and resigns himself to a subordinate position.

Thor just ignores Loki when he brings up the issue of having been lied to his entire life about who and what he was. He never gets past pseudo-apologizing at the end of Thor for “whatever I have done to wrong you” and dismissing Loki’s “imagined slights” in The Avengers. He never asks Loki to explain why he felt like he’d been living in Thor’s shadow, why he felt slighted and underappreciated, or what happened in the year between Thor and The Avengers that led him to come back and try to conquer Midgard. They never talk about how traumatic it must have been for Loki to find out he was a Frost Giant. And that’s because the writer and director of Thor: Ragnarok just decided that none of that matters; Loki is just a malicious mischief-maker who needs to be put in his place, taught through painful punishment that Thor the Unfailingly Virtuous will no longer tolerate his unreasonable behavior.

I personally feel that the “betrayal” can be repurposed by a director who cares for Loki’s character, especially considering Hiddleston’s performance adds so much nuance to Loki. That said, I don’t think TW meant for any of the depth I read into it. So, I agree with @philosopherking1887‘s frustration and assessment of Loki’s character, and how Ragnarok does it injustice.

Fair enough, @foundlingmother. A sympathetic reader could interpret Loki’s betrayal in Ragnarok as a reaction to Thor’s dismissal of him and his concerns in all of their conversations earlier in the film, especially the ones in the gladiators’ prison and the elevator. As with many of Loki’s prior actions, it would be unjustified, an excessive reaction to an emotional grievance, but still intelligible and in line with his previously established character. However, if we were to interpret Loki’s betrayal that way (rather than as a simple mischaracterization on the part of the creators), it makes Thor’s subsequent punishment and ultimatum speech, as well as Loki’s resulting acquiescence to Thor’s wishes, even worse.

yume-no-fantasy:

shine-of-asgard:

2oppositesidesof1coin:

luxury-loki:

kaori04:

shine-of-asgard:

luxury-loki:

From the director’s commentary of ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ (2017) // This film really is about them, and they resolve their differences. It’s so much better than the other two films where the main relationship was between Thor and Jane.

I’d have really loved to see this alternative version of the film. A script where Thor and Loki BOTH resolve THEIR differences, as opposed to a script where Thor reaffirms his view of what Loki should be, do and feel in order to be considered worthy by Thor’s standards. Alas, it was not to be.

I would say two other films (yes, with Jane) were like million times better in depicting brothers relationship and in developing them. Just absence of Jane won’t help you to do better job with that.

I have to disagree. I think Thor wants Loki to learn about being a trustworthy brother, and to stop this streak where he always feels the need to make a sneaky exit/betray the people trying to help him. Plus, I think in the second film, we think we’re seeing great character development for Thor and Loki, and after Loki’s death we think “Oh wow he actually died to save his brother!” but then we clearly learn he’s just pretending so that he can have the throne of Asgard. I love Loki, but we can’t for one second believe his aims in Thor: The dark world were actually good, where as in Ragnarok he actually STICKS AROUND. He helps save the day, and by the end of the film we see a Loki who’s actually proved to himself that he can be more than the god of mischief.

I do understand where you guys are coming from, but you have to remember Loki isn’t meant to be an inherently good person, if he was left to just be himself he would literally just cause non-stop trouble. Thor helps him be a better person, and he helps him in that rough/brotherly way which happens with all siblings. I know my elder sister would never sit me down nicely and tell me I was being ass hole, she’d fucking do something about it hahaha.

Anyway, I do respect your opinions and I hope you’ll respect mine, just wanted to say my piece!

I won’t be reblogging this again, but feel free to add any opinions x

I get where your coming from too and I agreed to a point. But I also agree that Loki changes based on Thor’s idea of worth. Loki never does it because he wants to and it never feels like it comes from a decision within himself. Maybe Infinity War will rectify that because I get the feeling that we will have more Loki without Thor. Also, Takia acts like he did so well with this but personally we had more interaction and them discussing family problems in the dark world then we did in Ragnarok. Remember the boat scene from the Dark World after Frigga’s death. I wanted the humor to stop for two seconds so that could happen. But no. They don’t come to any terms. Thor just let’s Loki cause Ragnarok and that’s the end of it.

This is a very good commentary, especially the distinction of the growth being self-driven as opposed to forced from the outside. It feels like Loki ends up behaving in Ragnarok because Thor essentially threatens him with disowning him as a brother once and for all (and Loki believes him). Which is worryingly enough the reason Loki was somewhat well behaved up until Thor 1. He wanted to belong and he went along with Odin’s and Thor’s wishes. So for me, in Ragnarok he circles back to being a well behaved and overshadowed second in command with a high potential of his resentment growing over years and spilling into confrontation once again. So what’s the arc? What’s his internal decision? That despite satisfaction not being in his nature and him explicitly wanting Thor’s respect he’ll now be happy with being told “maybe he’s not so bad after all”? Hmmm…

To be fair it might’ve been the only way to get through to Loki, given his wilfulness… This was the part of the script I had a problem with, though:


“I trust you, you betray me. Round and round in circles we go. See, Loki,
life is about… It’s about growth. It’s about change. But you seem to just
want to stay the same. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’ll always be
the God of Mischief, but you could be more.“ 

What bugged me was how Thor said it as if every time Loki betrayed him it had
been out of mischief, even though that clearly hadn’t been the case at all. If
we run through the ways in which Loki had "betrayed” Thor in the previous film–

1) Ruined Thor’s coronation by secretly letting the frost giants into Asgard
because he had thought Thor unworthy of the throne (which was true in
hindsight)
2) Lied to Thor about Odin dying, told Thor he could not come back to Asgard
and sent the Destroyer to attack Thor on Earth after he had learned of his heritage from Odin 
3) Wreaked havoc on Thor’s precious Earth
4) Faked his own death, exiled Odin and took over the throne 

–to me it was clear that each time Loki betrayed Thor there
was an understandable reason for it, whether it was jealousy or hurt or spite. He
was jealous of Thor, he was hurt and heartbroken and angry at being lied to
about his true heritage and birth right, he was mad, he was full of hatred for
Odin… Everything he did above was hardly attributable to his nature as the
“God of Mischief” at all, yet Thor had dismissed him as such, never
acknowledging any of the hurt and betrayal he had experienced to cause him to
turn malicious in the first place. It was just like at the beginning of the
Avengers film where he had dismissed Loki’s resentments as “imagined slights”,
and evidently this gross misunderstanding still hasn’t been resolved in this
film. 

To be honest it was odd that Thor should say that Loki “just seemed to want to stay the same” like he regarded Loki’s betrayal in this film as just
some same old mischievous behaviour that could be easily likened to his previous betrayals, because the motivations behind Loki’s actions had not been so shallow

in any of the previous films

and surely should not be generalized or written off as such. He spoke
as if Loki had always been lawless and incorrigible, when in fact he should
know full well that Loki hadn’t been like that at the beginning and just how
much Loki had changed from the baby
brother he once knew, as well as what had triggered the change–Loki most certainly didn’t turn bad for no reason.

Even though his words were meant to be used as some kind of reverse psychology
to get through to Loki, I feel like they had severely downplayed everything Loki had
gone through, which simply didn’t sit well with me because it wasn’t fair to Loki’s
character. It would’ve been nice if Thor could just acknowledge his and Loki’s
differences without belittling Loki’s values/imposing his own sense of
righteousness on Loki, like:

“Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we were going
to fight side-by-side forever, but at the end of the day you’re you and I’m me
and… Maybe there’s still good in you but… let’s be honest, our paths
diverged a long time ago.”

I would’ve liked to see him make it clear to Loki that he cared
and understood what it was that had led to Loki doing what he did, and that he respected Loki’s point of view and decisions (even if he did not approve of them), before proceeding on with the reverse psychology thing where he would let Loki know that from now
on he would no longer force him to adhere to his expectations nor try to stop him from
going anywhere he wanted. Then it’d be up to Loki to decide whether he wanted to
stay by Thor–if he chose to do so it’d entirely be out of his own accord,
as an equal and only because he cared;
not because Thor told him that he could be more, talking as though he knew better just because he stood on the moral high ground. The part with Loki abruptly betraying Thor and getting tased afterwards and the whole “God
of Mischief” talk should just be scrapped altogether, thank you very much. It was completely misleading the audience into having the impression that Loki was just a frivolous God of Mischief who liked to betray Thor for the sake of it, when his character and motivations had never been that simple and trivial.

Having said all that, I did appreciate seeing Loki returning to Thor’s side at the end and finally accepting Thor as a worthy king
after everything. Though I wasn’t exactly satisfied with how they got there, I did
have the biggest smile on my face when I was watching the “I’m here”
scene. It’s cute how Loki kept trying to push Thor away, but when Thor showed a
willingness to discard him he immediately felt wounded by it. At least they both
learnt a little something from this—for Loki it was to be more honest and to stop taking the person he cared
about and who cared about him for granted, and for Thor, well, I think the clichéd saying
goes, ‘If you love someone, set them free; if they come back, they’re yours’…

I completely agree with @shine-of-asgard​ and must strenuously disagree with @luxury-loki​‘s analysis – as well as Taika’s utterly disingenuous commentary. I’ve said this before, but @yume-no-fantasy​ articulates and explains very well the way that Ragnarok completely changes Loki’s character (or should I say “character”?) so that he becomes “lawless and incorrigible” rather than acting badly and villainously, yes – I am emphatically NOT claiming that Loki is “an inherently good person” – but from identifiable, comprehensible motivations. 

The part with Loki abruptly betraying Thor and getting tased afterwards and the whole “God of Mischief” talk should just be scrapped altogether, thank you very much. It was completely misleading the audience into having the impression that Loki was just a frivolous God of Mischief who liked to betray Thor for the sake of it, when his character and motivations had never been that simple and trivial.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is a beautiful way of putting it. 

(@illwynd​, I thought you might appreciate this too.)

I want to point to and rebut this claim from @luxury-loki in particular:

Plus, I think in the second film, we think we’re seeing great character development for Thor and Loki, and after Loki’s death we think “Oh wow he actually died to save his brother!” but then we clearly learn he’s just pretending so that he can have the throne of Asgard. I love Loki, but we can’t for one second believe his aims in Thor: The dark world were actually good

I think this is what Taika Waititi and Eric Pearson want you to think, but I absolutely do not believe this was what the creators of TDW (Markus & McFeely as screenwriters, Alan Taylor as director) had in mind. It is not clear in TDW whether Loki intended to fake his death from the time he was freed from prison, or whether he believed when he was stabbed that he was going to die, fortuitously survived, and took advantage of the opportunity. Regardless, he still acted to save Jane’s life several times; maybe he did that just to stay on Thor’s good side, but it’s still a good thing he did, and apparently the desire to stay on Thor’s good side is worthy enough to make his turnaround in Ragnarok count as a redemption. And in keeping with @yume-no-fantasy’s point about Loki’s motivations in earlier films: I believe that Loki had some comprehensible reasons for usurping the throne at the end of TDW, even though I fully acknowledge that it was not a morally good thing to do. I think he did it partly because he was pissed at Odin for lying to him, threatening to execute him, and then imprisoning him for life without once asking why he did what he did; partly because he believed, like Thor, that Odin was no longer a competent ruler (and we’ve seen Loki take action, again morally flawed but comprehensible, on that conviction before); and partly because he thought it was the best way to protect himself from Thanos (hiding in plain sight, shielding himself behind Asgard’s might, and using his position to control the disposal of the Infinity Stones). But Ragnarok completely ignores all of these explanations and decides that Loki did it just for power, self-aggrandizement, and mischievous shits and giggles. This is a bad, shallow retcon and I will never regard that interpretation as canon.

No, Taika, Thor and Loki do not reach any sort of “understanding,” because Thor never seeks to understand why Loki does what he does; and if they reach a “resolution,” it is only because Loki surrenders and resigns himself to a subordinate position.

Thor just ignores Loki when he brings up the issue of having been lied to his entire life about who and what he was. He never gets past pseudo-apologizing at the end of Thor for “whatever I have done to wrong you” and dismissing Loki’s “imagined slights” in The Avengers. He never asks Loki to explain why he felt like he’d been living in Thor’s shadow, why he felt slighted and underappreciated, or what happened in the year between Thor and The Avengers that led him to come back and try to conquer Midgard. They never talk about how traumatic it must have been for Loki to find out he was a Frost Giant. And that’s because the writer and director of Thor: Ragnarok just decided that none of that matters; Loki is just a malicious mischief-maker who needs to be put in his place, taught through painful punishment that Thor the Unfailingly Virtuous will no longer tolerate his unreasonable behavior.

Thor Ragnarok Review-Part 2

lucianalight:

I waited 4 years with patience and excitement for this movie. TR was
entertaining, there is no argue with that. And Weirdly enough I enjoyed
it. But it lacked what I care about most in a movie: depth, character
development and consistency. After watching it, I was disappointed,
angry and upset(I know it seems contradictory). I
waited for months to calm down enough to be able to write from a logical
point of view and not just emotionally. So in this series of posts I’m
going to explain why this movie didn’t meet my expectations.

Part 1: Loki or How Thor Ragnarok Tried to Give us Agent of Asgard and How it Utterly Failed

Part 2: Heroes, Villains and Double Standards

In my opinion a good narrator should be neutral to some extend and if not, at least should acknowledge the errors of their protagonist and give some credit to the antagonist view point. While Marvel has always been a hypocrite in regards to its heroes and villains, I’ve never expected to see the white or black narrative that we see in children’s stories. TR forces the view of its protagonist on the audience, that if someone doesn’t act as Thor wants, they are bad and their opinion is invalid. It also feeds the audience the notion that if someone is not on the side of heroes, they deserve everything that happens to them. This is what I call double standards. Because when sth is wrong, it is wrong no matter to whom it happens. Here’s a list of all the hypocritical things in the movie:

1.It is ok to invade a planet and kill their people if you think they are threatening your planet. I don’t know if anyone has written about this issue, but it seems no one noticed that what Thor did at the start of TR, attacking Fire Giants, killing Surtur and the inhabitants was basically the same thing he did in the first Thor movie by attacking and killing Frost Giants. Is it ok because they were plotting Asgardians demise? So does that mean What Loki did by unleashing the Bifrost on Frost Giants was ok because they were doing the same thing? Or is it ok because Thor only wanted Surtur’s crown and all the others he killed were unavoidable casualties? I mean Loki only wanted the Tesseract and the Earth and everyone he killed were unavoidable casualties too. Or maybe it is ok because Fire Giants and Frost Giants don’t look human? Racist much?

2. It seems that it’s ok to threaten someone’s life to reveal their plans if you are Thor(Thor threatening Loki with Mjolnir), but not if you are Loki(Loki attacking Valkyrie).

3. Basically if you are a hero, you can trap someone to fall(what Strange did to Loki) or torture them(Thor leaving Loki with the obedience disc)
for an indefinite amount of time and there’s nothing wrong with it. But if you are a villain, then the same acts are considered wrong(Loki dropping Thor in Avengers and the obedience disc being used on Thor).

4. Hulk is bad because he refuses to help Thor or listen to him, not because he’s been apparently killing slaves for fun for two years. Valkyrie is a traitor and a coward because she doesn’t want to go back to her old life, not because she’s been capturing and selling people as slaves for about a millennium.

5. If you are Thor, you have every right to want to take the throne from the rightful heir if you think they are not suited for the job. But if you are Loki then you are a villain for doing the same thing.

6. Basically if you are Loki, your emotions doesn’t matter and you can only speak on Thor’s terms and if you don’t agree and act the way Thor doesn’t approve, then you don’t deserve acceptance and love.

A good narrator doesn’t have double standards. They doesn’t make the protagonist completely right and superior to everyone. A good narrator treats all the characters fairly or at least gives some form of validity to other characters that are not the protagonist. As double standards is one of the things I absolutely can’t tolerate, I was really angry and disappointed to see it to this extend in the movie.

Thanks for making these points about Valkyrie and the Hulk as well as Thor and Loki. I was really uncomfortable with being invited to regard the Hulk as cute or endearing when clearly he has been killing other gladiators, and enjoying it, for two years. Korg makes some jokes about some guy named Doug and that’s pretty much all we hear about it. I was even kind of uncomfortable about Valkyrie just nonchalantly blowing up a whole bunch of other scrappers. I mean, I guess they’re evil… but as far as I can tell, they’re not any worse than she is. They were threatening to eat Thor, so it’s fine to kill them all.

#5 is a very interesting point. I mean, it’s indisputable that Hela was a bad ruler… but we’re also supposed to think that Thor wasn’t ready to rule at the beginning of the first movie, and we’re definitely supposed to have doubts about Odin’s competence by the end of TDW. The key differences between Thor’s actions and Loki’s are (1) Loki does his usurping work in secret while Thor does it out in the open, and (2) the movies are named after Thor, which legitimates his actions as heroic.

anais-ninja-bitch:

fuckyeahrichardiii:

loki-thou-art-drunk:

maneth985:

toomanylokifeels:

maneth985:

toomanylokifeels:

The amount of Christian iconography and references in Thor: Ragnarok kinda… confuse me. You have halos in painted depictions of Odin and his family. You have the Ark. Why. In previous films, you got Captain America asserting there’s only one god and Thor and his people demoted to demi-gods and/or aliens, who aren’t “immortal.” Like… ??? ??? ???? ????? ? ? ? ? 

is not that complicated. Is symbology, the halos are simply depicting everyone as saints, as good people, and yes is mostly used in Christian religion and kinda had me a bit confused but I don’t think it had anything to do with gods, just burrowing references, such as the murals that look Church-ish and the ark, they don’t call it an ark tho, do they? is just on the script. It’s simply a huge spaceship used to save an entire population.

That’s an explanation that on the surface, “makes sense,” but that’s not what I’m asking or why I’m asking it. I’m well aware of what Christian iconography means as I was raised Roman Catholic. I’m more-so asking why it’s preferenced, when there is a wealth of symbolism behind Thor as a god, as well as the mythos and religion(s) and their practices that inform Marvel’s Thor. 

Good question, I too wonder why use Christian symbols when there’s plenty to borrow from Norse mythos

Because Christian symbolism is the easiest way to connect with Thor’s intended audience of ppl raised on Western films – which the movie-makers care about way more than fidelity to Norse lore. That’s all.

In surviving written and archaeological sources, the iconography of Thor has ALWAYS been intertwined with Christian symbolism. “Norse mythos” and early Christianity in Scandinavia are not exclusive of each other.

People who do medieval Scandinavian studies nowadays are constantly having to make this point.

this whole conversation is missing some really important information:

Christianity did not invent halos and halos are not exclusively Christian.

the concept of divine beings emanating light from their bodies is, like, really popular across time, geography, culture, and religion. and when attempting to represent that in 2d painted art, there are only so many solutions to the problem. circular halos around the head are currently the going theme for Christians, but it’s just not correct to equate them exclusively to Christianity–other cultures use the imagery and Christianity uses other imagery to represent the same concept.

but as for why Taika Waititi chose that particular iconography? i bet he’s cognizant of what i’m talking about above, AND ALSO deliberately engaging current western association with Christian colonialism/imperialism.

so, like. it’s both less and more problematic than OP seems to suggest.

I’m also not sure what the problem is with “demoting” the Asgardians to very long-lived aliens. Is that not what they were in the comics? I don’t think Cap’s “there’s only one God” remark should be read as Marvel Studios somehow plumping for Christianity; it’s just a reminder that Steve Rogers was raised Catholic (Irish immigrant family, remember) and probably still believes in God, even if not all that devoutly (he’s no Matt Murdock). What would be incredibly weird is if Marvel Studios decided to stand behind the truth of Norse pagan religion. Instead they’re going with the fairly common fantasy/sci-fi trope that powerful, technologically advanced aliens were interpreted by a less advanced human society as gods.

Asgardians, Pain, and the Obedience Disk

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.

To add something semi-relevant: 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.

It troubles me that neither Thor himself nor the narrative – which consistently seems to take Thor’s POV as unproblematic and incontestable – considers that what Thor did might have been excessive. Yes, I get that it’s the “trickster tricked” narrative device. I get that Loki was going to betray Thor. And here’s why that doesn’t prove what people seem to think it proves:

  1. Very simply, Thor could have done something less severe. He could have used the buzzer to incapacitate Loki temporarily, and turned it off before he left. Hell, considering how Thor tended to remain incapacitated for a while even after it was no longer active, he probably should have given his (obnoxiously self-righteous, manipulative) “pep talk” after he turned the thing off. But the least he could have done was not leave it on for an indefinite amount of time, leaving Loki vulnerable to whoever happened along first. (I’ve also seen people claim that Thor put it on a “lower setting,” which is why it’s OK that Loki endured it for several minutes continuously rather than a few seconds and why he recovered faster. Maybe; but again, this is not made clear.)
  2. The way I read the film (as charitably as I could), Loki had good reason to be pissed at Thor. He had been trying to reach out and offer help, and Thor blew him off (that conversation is another post entirely, and other people have analyzed it at length, which I don’t need to do now). No, it wasn’t a good thing that he planned to turn Thor back in to the Grandmaster (though again, I doubt he thought he was putting Thor in serious danger; he was too entertaining as a gladiator to be melted). But you can also see why it wasn’t just an act of capricious malice, and therefore why it isn’t cleanly a matter of Bad Loki being bad and Good Thor needing to righteously punish him however severely he pleases.
  3. Or maybe we are supposed to think it was an act of capricious malice, because as I’ve complained before, this film makes Loki’s motivations completely incomprehensible beyond “I did it for the lulz.” Which may be intended to recast him into the Trickster archetype (on a fairly simplistic understanding thereof), but is massively discontinuous with the way the Loki of previous MCU films is motivated. So part of the problem here is that the narrative has already set Thor up to be justified in punishing Loki by giving Loki no clear motivation for doing anything he does. This is just lazy writing. And if you know me, you know that I will usually bend over backwards to avoid blaming an apparent inconsistency on bad writing. (This is partly a reflex of my professional life. Most historians of philosophy assume that if you say that your subject’s argument is invalid, you have missed something. You have not tried hard enough to make it consistent. Kant always knows better than you. Kant scholarship is like Talmud scholarship: you never want to say that the source text is inconsistent, because it’s basically divinely inspired.)

kingloptr:

philosopherking1887:

kingloptr:

image

philosopherking1887 replied to your post “Why tf do people think he’s abusive? All he ever tries to do is help…”

I never considered Thor’s behavior abusive before “Ragnarok,” but his character changed so radically – and not for the better – that I’m rethinking that opinion.

Just–here’s the thing, perhaps it’s technically a semantics issue that has me wanna physically fight when I hear the words ‘Thor’ and ‘abusive’ in the same sentence? I notice the word ‘abusive’ getting thrown around a lot in fandom lately, so much so that it almost annoys me nearly as much as the word ‘problematic’, or the incorrect use of the word ‘romanticize’. And I wouldn’t mind seeing people state some of the less than savory characteristics of Thor in relation to Loki so much IF they were also using it to describe Loki’s more vicious tricks and manipulations and mind-games, and if it weren’t used to ultimately demonize Thor as if he’s unreasonable to do the things he’s done in reaction to Loki’s most recent theatrics (literal theatrics too lol). I mean. ‘left Loki to die’???? Please, like Thor would ever do that holy shit I couldn’t believe I saw that phrase earlier today. Plus where is the respect for Loki’s power and abilities there omg like that little buzzer was actually capable of torturing or harming Loki seriously??

Anyways. if I didn’t see people calling regular ‘rival’ and flat out ‘enemy’ relationships in fiction ‘abusive’ every time I turn around, when that word has a very specific connotation and social meaning to it, and implies all sorts of (different kinds than seen here!) broken trust, power imbalances, specific patterns, cultural settings, stigmas and whatnot….then maybe me seeing someone say “Thor’s behavior is abusive” wouldn’t set off such a ‘do not want’ reflex on my end. 

But I absolutely cannot stand behind using that term to describe any way Thor treats Loki other than maybe any IMPLIED (not even shown in story!) ways he may have treated Loki unwittingly, before Thor 1.

Ordinarily, I would agree with you. I reblog all those anti-anti posts decrying the misuse and overuse of moralistic social justice buzzwords. I think it’s absurd to call villain/protagonist ships inherently abusive. Enmity and rivalry are not to be conflated with abuse. I wrote a fairly blistering post pre-Ragnarok insisting that Thor throwing something at chained-up Loki was just standard sibling crap, not abuse, and it’s OK (indeed, desirable) for heroes to be less than perfect. I even lost a longtime mutual for my trouble.

Having seen Ragnarok, talked to people whose opinions and insight I respect, and thought through the implications of the characters’ actions, I now find that the language of psychological and emotional abuse (forget the fucking buzzer for now) is not inappropriate for the way Thor behaves toward Loki (only in Ragnarok !) – especially because he’s presenting himself not as an adversary, but as acting in Loki’s own best interests. I could probably make all the same points without ever using the words “abuse” or “abusive.” I might instead say that he sees no need to try to take his brother’s perspective, manipulates him, gives him an ultimatum, deals with his behavior by training him with punishment rather than making any effort to understand the reasons behind his actions.

This is, of course, a reflex of the way the movie regards Loki: as a motivationally opaque “naughty piece of fate” (in a Nietzschean phrase) who betrays people for shits and giggles and has no real reason to complain of his treatment by his family. If he has no reasons for anything he does, it is entirely appropriate to deal with him as a causal cog to be manipulated (in the non-moral sense of the word, as one manipulates a tool) rather than an agent. But the previous movies did not present him that way, to my mind; they took his motivations seriously, making his actions comprehensible, intelligible, though (emphatically!) not excusable, much less defensible or justifiable. When Thor, along with the last movie, starts taking the “objective stance” rather than a “participant stance” toward Loki (to use more contemporary philosophical language) – i.e., treating him as something less than a rational agent – it is no longer much of a relationship.

But I realize that it’s probably pointless to try to set myself apart from the people who have been inappropriately applying the language of abuse since the beginning and try to defend my credentials as a reasonable interpreter of the films. There is a distinct class of people (not just me) who take this view only of the Thor of Ragnarok, who is a very different character from the Thor of the previous films. But I suspect that once we have departed from the respectable interpretation, we will continue to be lumped in with a group whose views are presumed to be irrational and easily dismissed.

Nah, I wouldn’t lump you specifically in with the more easily dismissed points of view I’ve seen floating around, and which caused me to rant etc in the first place~~ 

Mostly because I see what you mean here and I also respect your opinion on this and other things. I mean I’m not ignoring that there are manipulation tactics in place and that Thor certainly isn’t always as understanding of Loki as we think/see he should be from an outside perspective. My literal only problem here is when the word ‘abusive’ is being carelessly applied to Thor, when if we’re using that word to describe Thor’s treatment of Loki in any of the movies, it can also be used to describe Loki. Just meaning that their relationship is tumultuous on both sides, it’s not an ‘abuser and victim’ setup at all, in any sense of the word, that’s just not the correct interpretation of the dynamic in any version of Thor and Loki’s story. It may be a different type of abuse, or for different reasons, but any time I see a word as strong and with as much of an implication as ‘abuse’ used to describe Thor, and then right after Loki is considered someone who only behaves the way he does because Thor is and has always ‘abused’ him first….that’s where I tap out. Because anywhere outside of Thor 1 and prior (and I only include that bc we don’t see it for ourselves and can’t guess, but we see hints that Loki was regularly teased….which I would call more tantamount to ‘schoolyard drama’ rather than abuse), in the MCU, it’s the opposite. Thor reacts to Loki the way he does because Loki is still an untrustworthy and unpredictable wildcard. Not the other way around. And there are too many things at stake usually for Thor to have much choice about how he handles Loki in a pinch, IMO. ~

OK, good. I absolutely do not think that all of Loki’s bad actions have been responses to abuse by Thor. There are much better ways of describing their dynamic in earlier movies. Because of the adversarial relationship, I don’t think anything Loki does could felicitously be described as abuse; “being an asshole,” “fucking with Thor,” “straight-up trying to seriously injure Thor” are much more to the point. I prefer “bullying” or really just “being massively insensitive” to describe Thor’s behavior in Thor 1 and earlier. I find the language of abuse applicable only to the manipulation Thor pulls in Ragnarok, and then mostly because he didn’t even bother to ask why Loki banished Odin and pretended to be dead for 4 years. Loki is untrustworthy, but obviously Thor doesn’t think he’s unpredictable (quite the contrary). It’s the assumption that Loki does what he does just for shits and giggles and not because (I don’t know) he’s fucking pissed at Odin and hiding from Thanos.

In a way, Ragnarok treats Loki much more like the classic trickster of myth, who does fuck shit up just because he feels like it and then is forced to clean up his mess under threat of punishment, or just punished if clean-up is not a possibility. That is definitely not an egalitarian relationship, even in myth; Loki is the whipping boy of the gods, not only because he likes to fuck shit up, but also because he’s an outsider, a foreigner, strange and perverse by their moral-cultural standards. But that’s not how Loki has hitherto been presented in the MCU. Thor turns Loki into a Shakespearean villain rather than a trickster; he commits his misdeeds for recognizable psychological reasons, because he bears grudges and is desperate for approval. Even The Avengers points toward comprehensible reasons for Loki’s villainy: revenge against Thor and Odin for previous humiliation; ominous threats from a more powerful villain. I came to understand MCU Loki in those modern literary terms, as a psychologically familiar agent, who does things for reasons recognizable as such – bad reasons, often, but reasons nonetheless. I suppose that the reversion to a pre-modern character archetype (if that’s what happened) is jarring to me. Trickster Loki is cool and all, but that’s not the Loki I got to know and was motivated to write philosophical fanfiction about. And it was also jarring to see MCU Thor reacting as one of the mythical Aesir might to Trickster!Loki – as a “naughty piece of fate” to be controlled rather than a complex agent to be reasoned with. (I’m using that phrase from On the Genealogy of Morality advisedly; Nietzsche does use it to describe a pre-modern way of regarding criminals who break the rules of the community.) From a modern standpoint, the way the mythical Aesir treat Loki is pretty fucked up. Drop that into a basically modern narrative and it looks kind of horrifying.

Anyway, it’s nice to see that reasonable disagreement is sometimes possible in fandom… at least between people who previously know each other and respect each other’s intelligence 😛

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.

foundlingmother:

illwynd:

raven-brings-light:

foundlingmother:

raven-brings-light:

foundlingmother:

icyxmischief:

hela:

What would you like me to say?

Isn’t it great how later in this movie Thor accuses Loki of never wanting to move forward and communicate but right here when he tries, earnestly, to do so, Thor shuts him down. Isn’t that great. 

Isn’t it great how people talk about this scene like Loki’s just goading Thor and not being genuine? Isn’t that just great? I mean, he’s actually:

Loki: It hurts, doesn’t it? Being lied
to. Being told you’re one thing and
then learning it’s all a fiction.

Attempting to begin a conversation about the numerous lies their father told them. One lie in particular. The big one. The lie Thor has yet to condemn Odin for.

Loki: Look, I couldn’t jeopardize my
position with Grandmaster, it took
me time to win his trust. He’s a
lunatic, but he can be amenable.

Providing Thor with a very reasonable explanation for why he couldn’t help him.

Loki: Does this mean you don’t want my
help?

Loki: What I’m telling you is, you could
join me at the Grandmaster’s side.

Offering to help Thor get on the Grandmaster’s good side. 

Loki: Perhaps, in time, an accident
befalls the Grandmaster, and
then… 

Loki gestures: “we take over.” 

Letting Thor in on his plan to take over Sakaar.

Loki: You’re not seriously thinking of
going back, are you? Our sister
destroyed your hammer like a piece
of glass. She’s stronger than both
of us. She’s stronger than you.
You don’t stand a chance. Do you
understand what I’m saying to you? 

Expressing concern for Thor’s life. Openly worrying about Thor returning to fight Hela.

And then, only once Thor’s ignored all of that and thrown pebbles at him the whole time, spouting bullshit about going in alone, trying to goad Thor into saying something. And when that doesn’t work, rather than continuing to goad, he demands Thor say something, uncharacteristically revealing just how much it’s bugging him that Thor has said nothing.

So… I guess that means Thor is 100% right, and he’s the only brother who really wants to repair their relationship. I mean, it’s not possible for the hero to be at all flawed, short-sighted, consumed by grief, and assigning blame to people who don’t deserve it in this circumstance. Characters with realistic reactions to grief? What’s that? Sounds made up. No, Thor’s the good guy, and that means every word out of his mouth is gospel. (Norse Jesus.)

I would love this scene if it heralded character development, but instead it’s just there, making Loki out to be wrong even when he’s being calm, reasonable, and vulnerable with Thor, and contradicting scenes that come later. Oh, and teasing us with an actual conversation about the family drama, which the movie never delivers.

I read this scene differently when I saw it. I didn’t see it as Loki being wrong and Thor being right, but about their flawed relationship. 

Yes, Loki is being relatively calm, reasonable, and vulnerable for the first part of the conversation. But From Thor’s point of view, he’s basically had no time to talk to Loki in years – first Loki lied to him for no ostensibly good reason and then and tried to kill him and then himself (thor 1), then Loki tried to take over Earth (avengers), then Loki managed to cheat death but instead of telling Thor about it he let him grieve AGAIN and he hid and banished Odin (and, in Thor’s mind, was instrumental in his death). Also, Loki has had weeks here in Sakaar coming to terms with the latest turn of events, but for Thor it’s been less than a day since he both got Loki back and lost his father. So, yes, Loki is momentarily pretending all that other stuff didn’t happen and is being nice RIGHT NOW but Thor is not in the mood to particularly give a shit or to be nice himself, and honestly if I were in his place I’d probably react the same way – no matter HOW earnest Loki was being in the first part of the conversation, which he was.

I did like this scene, because it showed how much Loki still cares about what Thor thinks of him, and because it showed that Thor *isn’t* perfect.

Basically, these two just need to be locked in a room together and not allowed out until they vent all their aggression and then actually TALK about everything that’s happened since Thor’s failed coronation. (and then hug it out)

Tl;Dr Thor isn’t perfect, he’s pissed.

I agree with everything you said @raven-brings-light. That’s why I would have liked this scene if they movie had readdressed it. Of course Thor’s not in the mood. This, to me, seems like a completely normal reaction for Thor to have given everything that’s happened. I guess it might have been lost somewhat in my snark, but that’s what I meant when I mentioned consumed by grief. This wasn’t a criticism of Thor.

My issue is with the movie, not Thor. I love a flawed Thor. Flawed heroes are my jam. It’s the movie that never says “Remember when Thor blamed Loki for Odin’s death and Hela’s return in that one scene? He was grieving then. Loki’s not really responsible for that.” It’s the movie that suggests Thor and Loki’s relationship problems are primarily perpetuated by Loki’s character flaws (which certainly play a role, don’t get me wrong), rather than something they’re both responsible for, both because of their actions and failures to communicate with one another.

The scene itself is great from the standpoint that it’s actually as close as we get to showing the nuance of their relationship. It’s letdown by the rest of the movie, which fails to reexamine Thor’s flaws, and thus tricks members of the audience into overlooking them. As I mentioned, I usually see this scene discussed as Thor doing the right thing by ignoring a Loki that’s just needling/goading him, when it seemed so obvious to me that wasn’t what happened. 

So I was thinking about this in the car just now, and actually the more I think about it, I don’t even know if Thor approached this the wrong way at all.

Loki’s initial *words* are truthful, yes, but I don’t believe he’s offering them in the spirit of reconciliation. I think he’s been hanging on by the skin of his teeth in this hellhole, and when Thor showed up he breathed a sigh of relief – THANK GOD, THOR CAN HELP GET ME OUT OF THIS MESS. So he’s being “nice” in order to get Thor to work with him to get them (and by extension, HIM) out of hot water.

And Thor IS pissed, and sees it for what it is, a cheap play to his emotions. And when he stays silent, Loki DOES start goading/needling, because being ignored is what he hates more than ANYTHING ELSE.

(btw all of this should all be read in a tone of friendly discussion! I just like to hash things out! no personal animosity here!)

Yeah idk, I don’t think I wholly agree with that take on it, but honestly this movie is such a mess for anything to do with Thor and Loki’s characterization and particularly their relationship with each other that all we can do is extrapolate and try to make sense of things that don’t make sense in the film. But given the fact that Loki’s first words to Thor when they meet on Sakaar are a legitimately surprised “you’re alive?!” yes, I can agree with the notion that Loki has been hanging on, hating this place but trapped there, and now he’s got his hopes pinned on Thor. But I don’t see his words as insincere in the way I think you mean it? Like, he knows Thor is pissed at him for ALL THE THINGS and… it would be humiliating, in the face of that, to express what he’s actually feeling–the desperation for Thor’s company and good opinion after so long, the relief that the person he cares about most in the universe is not actually dead, the ancient impulse to stick by Thor like glue–so he’s playing it cool, feeling out the situation so if Thor rebuffs him he can try something else without having completely shown his hand. 

And I don’t blame Thor for not letting Loki off the hook that easily. Thor is quite reasonably upset, and eagerly going along with Loki’s plan, showing a willingness to reconcile… would have sure made Loki feel better in the moment but it wouldn’t have done Thor much good, and it wouldn’t have really helped get to the root of their issues either. So yeah I’m not blaming Thor at all for his reactions here.

Personally, my issue with it is that the movie utterly drops the ball after this point and basically forgets this interaction, ignores what their issues are, and instead slots in whatever is needed to make the characters do what the plot requires, no matter how inconsistent or out of the blue it is. So we never actually get to know how this would play out between them because it, well, doesn’t. And consequently, it leaves this scene feeling incomplete and unsatisfying in retrospect.

^^^^^^^^^^

Thanks @illwynd. I think you communicated pretty much my thoughts much better than I did.

When I say Thor has character flaws, it’s more in the sense that he isn’t Norse Jesus, forgiving and Good™ the way I sometimes see fandom talking about him. I think Thor doesn’t always have to be the one reaching out, willing to forgive, being nothing but nice to a cruel, impossible to talk to Loki in all their interactions, for him to be the good guy. Yet, I see their interactions reduced a lot to Thor doing the right/good thing and Loki doing the wrong/bad thing, including this one. My snark was directed at that, and the point of my post was to look at Loki’s lines in the first part of this scene, and point out that most of them are genuine attempts to reach out to Thor, not goading. It’s ok for Loki to reach out once in a while. He can still be a bad guy (or morally ambiguous, if you prefer, which I do).

I think what you said about Thor, how it wouldn’t have done him any good, is quite insightful. Reconciliation needs to happen on both their terms, not on Loki or Thor’s terms. The reconciliation attempt made by Thor in the beginning of Avengers is a great example of one offered on Thor’s terms. He asks Loki to come home, but he doesn’t acknowledge why Loki… left, and even calls Loki’s slights imagined. Here, all the power is reversed. It’s Loki saying “Go along with my plan, Thor. Let’s talk about the lie Odin told me, Thor.” Genuine, but only on Loki’s terms, and now Loki’s ready.

I am in complete agreement with @foundlingmother and @illwynd on this, including the fact that the movie failed to acknowledge that Loki was the one holding out an olive branch here—not very graciously, to be sure—and Thor swatted it down. If Thor gets credit for reaching out to Loki in the scene from The Avengers where he uses the phrase “imagined slights,” Loki should get credit for this. Which is not to say that I blame Thor for turning him down—any more than I blame Loki for turning Thor down in The Avengers.

@raven-brings-light, what did you see as a cheap play to Thor’s emotions? I don’t think that’s what the “It hurts, doesn’t it? Being lied to” line was. I think that was Loki trying—again, very ungraciously—to get Thor to acknowledge the wrongs that had been done to Loki.

saw ur letter to fandom post and was reading through the comments. someone mentioned talking about loki being responsible for odins death. didn’t mean much to the post itself, but i wondered about ur opinion. do u think loki killed odin?

foundlingmother:

philosopherking1887:

Better tag @sarah1281 on this one because it was her comment. I do think Loki had some culpability – maybe not in Odin’s death as such, but in the manner of it, and of course the fact that he didn’t have the opportunity to warn them about Hela. But no, I don’t think Loki killed Odin. I think Odin was very old and tired, had been putting off Odinsleep too much, and was devastated by the death of Frigga, his companion, advisor, and love. I suspect that he was also hollowed out by his thorough failure with Loki, and the fact that Loki was so angry with him that he was willing to wipe his memory, banish him, and usurp the throne. To the extent that that’s the case, Loki is indirectly responsible, but I do think it’s also Odin’s recognition of his own failure, which isn’t exactly Loki’s fault.

I wouldn’t assign much blame to Loki for Odin being unable to tell them about Hela. He had many years to do so. Loki’s responsible for Odin not being able to warn them from 2013 to 2017 (and based on his previous silence, and how little he actually tells them, I’m not convinced he would have warned them much further in advance).

And since I was part of that initial conversation that @sarah1281 was referring to, I feel it’s important to clarify my point of view. It aligns with @philosopherking1887′s. Furthermore, I wouldn’t list Odin’s death as one of Loki’s crimes, and I take issue not with Thor blaming Loki (I think it’s a perfectly reasonable reaction to losing a loved one), but to the movie suggesting he’s correct when he says “You did this.” There’s a difference between a character searching for someone to blame for a loss (an irrational, but normal reaction to tragedy), and a film agreeing with that character, and presenting no room for a discussion. To tie it back into the post the anon was reading, I think it highlights one of the weaknesses in Ragnarok that they introduce, but never address, this particular reaction Thor has to his father’s passing. Ragnarok does a decent job of acknowledging the family conflicts, and even comes up with a few that make perfect sense, but it doesn’t pay them off well, if at all (see how Loki’s heritage is brought up and completely ignored in a handful of seconds). Some of that’s the tone of the movie, and some of it’s a disregard for the previous films.