This sounds positive, maybe, I hope? I don’t think they’re going to achieve the same level of depth and complexity with Thanos that Loki has reached, but maybe this is a good sign they’ll let Loki’s true colors fly?
This is good, right? Or promising, at least.
“What appeals to my brother and me about movies in general, characters in general, is the complexity that you can find within them. People aren’t simply this or simply that. Loki is a great example — somebody who is torn in two directions.”
It’s a big middle finger to Waititi’s “Loki is just a rich kid from outer space and we shouldn’t give a shit about his own problems”. 😏
Personally I’m not worried that much about Loki’s characterization. From what I saw in Winter Soldier and Civil War, Russo borthers are good at understanding the characters. Especially I like their portrayal of Natasha more than her portayal in Avengers1,2. My worries are Thor and Loki relationship and Loki’s fate. I hope they either show that their dynamic is not right, or give them a proper reconciliation, but I don’t think they have time for that in the movie with all these characters. And for the love of everything good in the world: PleaseDon’t Kill Loki!
I like that they’re taking this seriously, but I sort of don’t like how their mind went to Thanos (their own complex villain) when asked about Loki (a character they’ve never written for before).
Agree with @shine-of-asgard about Thanos. Their attempts to draw our attention to him is kinda getting annoying… BUT also intrigues me? May be we are going to walk out of cinema sympathising with Thanos?? That would be a plot twist no one was prepared for.
But to be honest it more looks like Marvel is taking their new direction “making more interesting villains” too seriously and pushing and forcing it to the point when their “sympathic villain” is going to annoy and frustrate more than just a regular marvel villain.
My hope is that in order to show Thanos’ intelligence, he must have an intelligent conversation… With somebody… And it doesn’t seem likely that he’ll do that with any Avengers or any Black Order members… See what I’m getting at?
In one of his interviews in China Tom actually said that there will be a “very interesting conversation” between Loki and Thanos.
Don’t do this to me. A storyline for Loki where he gets to play a reluctant double agent who’s maybe seeing the logic on both sides of the argument while fearing for his life and also that of his brother on the other side of war, and also while dealing with the idea that his brother has denounced him as a traitor for good this time is too precious to put into words. Bye.
If, like Tom says in one of his interviews, Marvel takes Thor and Loki to be closer than ever at the start of IW, how about instead of misunderstanding and doubting Loki again, this time we have Thor trust and believe in Loki unconditionally even if he doesn’t know what Loki’s reasons are for his apparent betrayal? He worries about Loki’s safety, and at the end of the day when they reunite, the both of them very much alive, he hugs and tells his brother, “You’re here and that’s all that matters.”
You know, I get all the criticisms of Ragnarok, I see where they are coming from, I agree with a number of them, and they’re all valid even if I don’t agree with all of them, but…
I just wish there was a little more positivity around the film… for instance, I would love to read some in-depth positive discussion around it, because I personally enjoyed it, I think it did some new interesting things with the direction of Thor and Loki’s relationship and characters and I don’t think it butchered their characterizations. I do think that the style feels like a radical departure from the previous films, and that humorous style in which the narrative was painted jarred at times with the emotions it conveyed.
Most of the positivity I see on Tumblr tends to come from more pro-Thor, anti-Loki blogs (which I care absolutely nothing for) or from shippy blogs. Among the blogs I tend to relate more to (more gen-focused and Loki-supportive) the only discussion I can seem to find is discourse on how bad Ragnarok was. Which, again, I can understand, but at times it’s just a little downing.
I don’t like to be a downer, because I totally understand how it feels to be looking for positivity and coming across negativity instead. I consider myself to be more analytical than negative. Unfortunately, analysis can often result in pointing out the negative aspects of something.
However…I think I can explain why it is that you notice positivity coming from the pro-Thor anti-Loki blogs. Simply put -there’s a reason why people like the things that they do.
Thor appeals to a certain kind of person. More specifically, the manner in which he’s been characterized appeals to a certain kind of person. And that is the kind of person who finds movies like Ragnarok amusing. Thor is not a deep thinker. He’s not stupid by any means, but he’s not introspective. He’s not intellectual. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s just who he is. He’s a physical guy, for the most part. He’s a jock. He acts based on gut instinct. He doesn’t look below the surface of things. He sees no need to. He’s ego driven. And thus -he appeals to people who function similarly. The protagonist electrocuting his no good brother? That’s hilarious. Using the no good brother as a battering ram? He had it coming, of course. He’s no good. Duh!
To be perfectly honest, if one doesn’t dig TOO deeply, Ragnarok is a very entertaining movie. It’s visually stunning. The music is great. The dialogue is witty. If you completely disregard the established canon for the characters and don’t think too deeply about the implications of anything they are saying or doing, the movie is great fun. Thor fans are looking for what is explicit and Ragnarok is full of it.
Now -Loki fans are the opposite of that. They are deep thinkers. They take things very seriously. They want to to know the WHY of everything. They are largely made up of people who know what it is to be rejected and despised, or at the very least, to feel different. They see the pain that is unspoken. Behind every one of Loki’s words or actions, they see the contributing trauma. They see more than what is shown. Loki fans are always looking for what is implicit. Give them a film directed by a Shakespearean actor like Sir Kenneth Branagh and they will are happy as a pig in shit.
So, Ragnarok is not without merit. But you’re not likely to find many die hard Loki fans who don’t have at least some criticisms of its treatment of their favorite character.
I think maybe my calling certain blogs “anti-Loki” is a bit strong, through they are definitely pro-Thor. I don’t believe that people who prefer Thor are necessarily more shallow or less introspective, or that people who prefer Loki are deeper thinkers. It feels too much like generalizing and slapping a label on people. I have encountered a number of intelligent analytical people who loved Ragnarok and who also see Loki as a complex character more than a villain and who are pro-Loki AND pro-Thor (What do I even mean by pro-Thor? I guess I mean that they didn’t see Thor’s actions/characterization in Ragnarok as mainly problematic). I wish there were more of those people.
I’m not saying I want to see zero criticisms, I’m saying I want to see some other discussion mixed in as well. A lot of the problems Loki fans on here have seem to be with Ragnarok dismissing Loki’s past sufferings, experiences and depth as a character, when I don’t feel it did that. I feel like Loki changed and grew in this film, as he does in every film he has appeared in. To say that Loki has been moving beyond his past pain and trauma is not the same as belittling those experiences, even if I agree that it is easy to read the film as saying that Loki should “just get over it.” And that is one legitimate interpretation of the film, but it is not the only one, and it is not mine. I take issue with the concept that, if you can move on in any way from your past pain, if you can get better, then your pain and struggles must not have been real in the first place. It’s invalidating. That kind of thinking has got me stuck a long time before. It has got many people who suffer from mental illness stuck.
I appreciate Loki in Ragnarok, because he has clearly done some healing for himself in the interval, has started being willing to discuss some of what he went through (in the play and in his convo with Thor in prison), some of the sharpest pain has worn off, but he is still recovering, still struggling with how exactly to move on from it and who exactly he is in the aftermath. This is not unusual for those who have gone through trauma/mental illness, this is part of the recovery period where they are looking to build their life back.
Loki was afraid to confront Hela, which has been criticized as a cowardly characterization of the character – but I disagree. Fear is not cowardly, fear is a survival mechanism. Loki in the Avengers and in TDW would probably have thrown himself recklessly into the fight, regardless of the odds (and in this case I’m certain the odds are that Hela would have easily defeated them both and Loki KNOWS the odds because he isn’t actually stupid), because he was self-destructive and didn’t truly care about his life. In contrast in Thor 1, before he learns the shattering truth and even before he gives up all hope on the Bifrost, Loki clearly favored non-confrontational methods first, as on Jotunheim when he preferred to placate rather than provoke Laufey. In moving past some of his self-destructiveness, Loki is in a way going back to who he was before. There was nothing to be won from confronting Hela then and there, what he couldn’t account for in his panic was her following.
In my opinion, Loki was seeking his sense of direction in this film. He has overcome some of his past self-destructiveness, but without yet having a clear idea of where to go from here. Like I said, he’s been recovering, it’s a tenuous period where he is rediscovering and redefining himself, he’s going back and looking at his memories and taking back his own narrative – where he was once “the monster that parents tell their children about,” he chooses to be the “savior of Asgard” – but it’s a process and he was just not ready yet to confront Hela and save Asgard.
Loki says “Take US back” which means him AND Thor, and this is key. Loki was trying to get Thor to stay on Sakaar, and I’ve discussed this before, but I personally think Loki’s main, selfish goal throughout most of the film was to keep Thor alive, to not lose the last of his family. On the one hand, I consider this bravery, that Loki seems to have reached a level of honesty with himself, that he does value his family, the family that let him down and hurt him, inadvertently or not, and that could still reject him (see again his conversation with Thor, he had to know that Thor might still reject his help and invalidate his sincerity), rather than simply pushing them away and running from the pain of past and potential rejection.
Ragnarok is not perfect, obviously. The dynamic between the brothers is unbalanced, and Loki might not have returned to Thor’s side for the healthiest of reasons – their relationship will always have a flavor of codependency to me. But for me, this does not invalidate what I consider to be good character development and progress on Loki’s part. Besides, I love that I have a reflection of how messed-up and hurtful relationships can be in real life, even when the other person does love you. I also disagree that the narrative affirms Thor at every turning, he is mocked plenty as well while he flounders in Sakaar at the mercy of Valkyrie and the Grandmaster. The film stops mocking both Thor and Loki once they are back on Asgard working towards a selfless goal, rescuing the survivors on Asgard.
It’s just my opinion. I get most people will probably disagree with me, and that’s okay.
I can’t speak for other Loki fans who have been criticizing Ragnarok, but my problem with its depiction of Loki’s psychology is not that it shows him having “moved past” his trauma; rather, it either ignores it, or actively mocks and minimizes it. A few people who have a negative overall opinion of TR, like @foundlingmother, have decided for the purpose of fanfiction (or avoiding despair) to read the play as Loki’s self-therapy, his attempt to come to terms with his heritage and achieve some kind of catharsis regarding his sacrifice… but that’s an extremely generous interpretation, and I doubt very much that it’s the one the film’s creators (screenwriter Eric Pearson as well as director Taika Waititi) intended. The film doesn’t even acknowledge that Loki’s Jotun heritage was ever a problem for him or for Asgard; if the revelation in the play was intended to show reconciliation of himself and/or Asgard to the idea, it might have alluded to the fact that Asgardians (used to) regard Frost Giants as monsters. It also seems implausible that it’s supposed to help him move past his near-death experience, because the movie never acknowledges that Loki was actually stabbed, whether or not he believed he was going to die. Loki never contests Thor’s claim that he “faked his death” – suggesting that he staged the whole thing – and the movie invites us to think that the only reason he did it was to usurp the throne, and that the only reason he did that was so he could glorify himself and live in luxury, rather than, say, hiding from Thanos and trying to keep the Infinity Stones away from him, or even taking (not totally unjustified) revenge on Odin for his lies and maltreatment.
Someone else pointed out recently that the play has Loki say “I’m sorry about that thing with the Tesseract. I just couldn’t help myself,” and then his next line is “I’m a trickster,” which seems to be intended as an explanation. I guess I can see why he wouldn’t want to reveal to all of Asgard that he was under severe pressure from a bigger supervillain… but he didn’t have to mention it at all. This, and the implied explanation for Loki’s seizing the throne, is a general pattern: TR consistently reduces Loki’s motivation to “I’m a trickster, it’s in my nature” – or, effectively, “I did it for the lulz” – when his motivations in previous films have never been that simplistic. Arguably, letting the Frost Giants in to disrupt Thor’s coronation and goading him into trying to go to Jotunheim might have been partly out of mischief (“to ruin my brother’s big day”), but it was also because he wanted to prove to Odin that Thor wasn’t ready to rule – and he wasn’t wrong about that. His reasons for lying, betraying Thor, and causing destruction throughout Thor are envy and resentment, the desire to prove himself to Odin, and emotional pain over the revelation of his origins. His reasons for invading Earth in The Avengers are ambition, anger at Thor and Odin, and some level of coercion from Thanos.
There are definitely respects in which Loki acts like a trickster in earlier films, weaving complicated schemes, delighting in chaos, and hiding his true intentions; but he always has comprehensible, psychologically realistic motivations for his crimes and betrayals. What’s more, it should be clear from watching the previous movies that he almost never enjoys betraying Thor. FFS, he’s crying while he fights him at the end of Thor; he’s obviously affected, even tempted, by Thor’s pleas for him to come home in The Avengers, he hesitates before he drops the cage, he has tears in his eyes when he stabs Thor on the tower. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, TR ignores all of that and scrapes Loki’s psychology paper-thin, essentializing him as a simplistic version of the trickster archetype who just can’t resist the urge to betray people for shits and giggles.
It’s only because of this denial of Loki’s psychological depth and motivational complexity that TR can set up the bit where Thor “tricks the trickster” and gives that lecture about change. As @endiness (and others, probably) has speculated, the creators seem to have ignored all of Loki’s character development in previous films precisely so that Thor can get all the credit for his “reform” and “redemption.” It’s not at all clear why Loki betrays Thor on Sakaar; again, people trying to rescue the movie’s characterization can speculate that it’s because Loki is pissed at Thor for dismissing him, or maybe to keep Thor from what Loki thinks of as a suicide mission to fight Hela, but I think (and Thor’s little speech strongly suggests) the movie wants us to assume Loki did it for the same reason it claims he went after the Tesseract: “I just couldn’t help myself. I’m a trickster.” It’s really kind of rich that Thor is preaching at Loki about growth and change, considering how much Loki has changed over the course of the films, while TR regresses Thor back to the brash arrogance of the first film – no, worse; it makes him narcissistic and cruel in a way he wasn’t even at the beginning of Thor, as oblivious and insensitive as he could be. Many of the people who condemn TR are people who love Thor (almost) as much as they love Loki, and all of them agree that it ruins Thor’s character even more than Loki’s. I kind of don’t understand how the “Thor stans” can still call him a kindhearted little ray of sunshine in light of his behavior toward Bruce/Hulk as well as Loki… but as I said before, I think they’re motivated to like the movie and the version of Thor that together put Loki in his place.
As I’ve said, it’s possible to give the portrayal of Loki a more generous interpretation than I’ve offered, but part of the reason I seriously doubt it’s intended that way is that if you put the text of the movie, including the mocking tone of the little play, together with Taika Waititi’s interviews and other conduct, you get a picture of someone who is contemptuous of the rest of the Thor franchise, of Loki as a character, of Tom Hiddleston as an actor, and of Tom Hiddleston-as-Loki’s mostly female fans. Of course, people who are more gung-ho than I am about “the death of the author” have a policy of ignoring the artist’s intentions entirely, and that might be a good strategy if you want to stay positive about the movie.
This is the most direct addressing of the points I raised that I have ever got, so thank you. I hadn’t thought about framing Loki’s actions and motivations throughout Ragnarok through the lens of the specific wording in the play. Hm. The play is one of those things I’m still thinking on – because I agree entirely with everything you have to say about the complex psychological motives behind all of Loki’s past actions.
As to Thor…I admit I have devoted most of my energy to thinking about Loki in this film, and haven’t perfectly worked through my conflicting feelings on Thor’s characterization. I do feel like I understand why Thor is acting this way, considering that Loki has hurt him in the past, but their problems run both ways, and I would have liked it a lot better if Thor would have acknowledged this at all and tried even once to genuinely reach out to Loki. I get that the film is trying to say that sometimes if a relationship is toxic, it’s better to cut off contact than continue to try to help someone who refuses to change, à la A&E Intervention. The execution could have been done better, because I don’t think Thor has given Loki a proper chance at communication first or recognized his own role in the problem yet, before deciding to just leave him vulnerable on Sakaar. So, yes, much of what Thor does in this film sometimes feels unkind or thoughtless, if not cruel.
I disagree on the part where you say it is entirely unclear why Loki betrays Thor on Sakaar again. I thought there a good number of signs that Loki was anxious about Thor going back to Asgard, from reminding Thor that “our sister destroyed you hammer like a piece of glass, you’re not seriously thinking of going back” to his anger that Valkyrie had helped Thor escape.
But you bring up a lot of good interesting points…I understand a little better now why people take issue with the film. I don’t disagree with you that the mocking tone of the play and Waititi’s words don’t mesh very well with my interpretation. I am aware of what Waititi has said, I guess I had kind of decided to throw that out. I usually am a stickler for authorial intent, but in this case I’m willing to make an exception, because Ragnarok is not only Waititi’s creation, it’s also the actors’ and furthermore must be understood within the wider context of previous movies. Like, I am pretty sure Loki was not meant to have faked his death in TDW – so, since Ragnarok implied he did, but never makes any definite statement on it either way, I will continue to assume that he did not.
Another thing I am not doing is taking Thor’s words and interpretation within the film as the framing for the narrative of the film, even if I suspect that authorial intent intended the film to be read that way. So when Thor talks down to Loki and accuses him of not changing and growing – I am not assuming that that is the interpretation of Loki that the film says is correct. I’m just taking it as presenting Thor’s opinion on Loki. Thor’s POV, and not necessarily the film’s POV. Thor also believes that Odin is “stronger” (that was a WHATT??!? moment for me) even after learning about all the bloodshed and lies he kept, and I don’t think that the film is condoning those lies and bloodshed. Well maybe that all sounds a bit convoluted. Call it mental gymnastics if you will, I guess, it’s the interpretation I enjoy better.
Well, I am an academic philosopher. Addressing points directly is kind of what we do.
There are more problems with Thor’s characterization than just the way he treats Loki, though of course the electrocution scene is the most glaring example of how callous, self-satisfied, and careless of others’ well-being he is in TR. The way he manipulates Hulk and Bruce, telling each that he likes him better than the other, is meant to be funny, but he really just comes off as an insensitive jerk. Likewise with the “Is he though?” about Bruce being powerful and useful. All the self-congratulatory “That’s what heroes do” crap… it feels like a disdainful parody of the actual heroism that Thor and the other Avengers have shown throughout the MCU. It’s one thing to be self-aware about the inherent silliness of superhero movies (which Marvel generally is); it’s another to mock one’s own franchise, both narrowly (the Thor films) and broadly (the MCU), at every turn. And regarding Thor’s “tough love” in “cutting off a toxic relationship” (which, BTW, I’ve been convinced was not actually the goal; Thor was just manipulating Loki by giving him what looked like an ultimatum, and fully expected him to fall in line)… I encourage you to read this post if you haven’t already.
I can’t use the block quote indentation thing to quote from your post because Tumblr has been making the font huge (why?!), so I’ll use italics:
“Another thing I am not doing is taking Thor’s words and interpretation within the film as the framing for the narrative of the film, even if I suspect that authorial intent intended the film to be read that way. So when Thor talks down to Loki and accuses him of not changing and growing – I am not assuming that that is the interpretation of Loki that the film says is correct. I’m just taking it as presenting Thor’s opinion on Loki. Thor’s POV, and not necessarily the film’s POV.”
It seems perfectly clear to me that the film does intend for us to read Thor’s interpretation of Loki’s actions and character flaws as correct, and to applaud him for turning the tables on Loki, telling him what’s what, and getting him to grow up and get over himself and just do what Thor wants him to. As a writer of canon-compliant Thor/Loki fanfiction, however, I find myself in a bind: given that Ragnarok is now part of canon, how can I continue to write in a way that makes both of them basically sympathetic (while acknowledging their flaws)? So for the purpose of fanfiction, I’ve been making interpretive moves similar to yours; I’ve had Loki (and Heimdall!) reproach Thor for his actions, and I’ve had Thor recognize that he overreacted in anger and feel guilty about it, even though I know that the Thor of TR (whom I’ve been calling Thor* because I consider him a completely different character than the Thor of the previous films) probably still thinks he’s perfectly justified, and Loki* (to use the same convention) probably agrees. But the difference between our approaches is that I’m being unrealistically charitable only for the purpose of fanfiction, while my default interpretation of the movie takes into account the authors’ intended interpretation and is therefore almost wholly negative (except that I like what they did with Heimdall and mostly like Valkyrie).
I don’t think I ever asked WHY people dislike Thor: Ragnarok; I could write on that topic myself for days. I did try to get a count of Thorki shippers who dislike it, but it got messed up by non-shipping Loki stans who I already knew didn’t like the movie but kept reblogging to say (unnecessarily) why they didn’t like it…
I can’t like Ragnarok even as a crack fic for two main reasons. The first is that I can tell that the spirit in which it pokes fun at the previous movies and their fans is contemptuous and malicious; there’s a huge difference between that and the kind of affectionate parody you see within fandom itself. The second is that it just seems like a huge waste. This movie was supposed to be the culmination of a trilogy; it was supposed to close the emotional arc the characters had taken through the previous films. I came to the fandom late, so I’d only been waiting 2 years, but many fans had been waiting 4 years to see Thor and Loki together again, to see the end of their story. They, we, wanted something genuine and emotionally fulfilling; we got a crack fic, and not only that, but one that insulted us for caring. It strikes me as a waste of money as well as time and opportunity: Marvel spent millions on something that made fun of the films it was supposed to follow up and the people who loved them. I guess that’s working out for them, because it made a lot of money…
Ultimately, Marvel is a business, not an art studio; if one of its franchises is lagging in popularity and profitability, it’s perfectly happy to throw it under the bus – or as they prefer, “reinvent” it. Like most marketers, especially in comics, Marvel cares far more about the attention of young men than of women of any age. As others have observed, Loki is beloved by women, not by young men, for whom he is hardly the typical power fantasy (queer-coded and quasi-effeminate as he is) and might even be seen as threatening: what do women see in this elegant, cerebral, non-traditionally-masculine, morally ambiguous character? So Ragnarok catered to the male audience by making Thor a trash-talking frat bro and neutering Loki, making him seem incompetent, ineffectual, and even more effeminate, and putting him back in his “proper” place under Thor’s thumb.
You know, I get all the criticisms of Ragnarok, I see where they are coming from, I agree with a number of them, and they’re all valid even if I don’t agree with all of them, but…
I just wish there was a little more positivity around the film… for instance, I would love to read some in-depth positive discussion around it, because I personally enjoyed it, I think it did some new interesting things with the direction of Thor and Loki’s relationship and characters and I don’t think it butchered their characterizations. I do think that the style feels like a radical departure from the previous films, and that humorous style in which the narrative was painted jarred at times with the emotions it conveyed.
Most of the positivity I see on Tumblr tends to come from more pro-Thor, anti-Loki blogs (which I care absolutely nothing for) or from shippy blogs. Among the blogs I tend to relate more to (more gen-focused and Loki-supportive) the only discussion I can seem to find is discourse on how bad Ragnarok was. Which, again, I can understand, but at times it’s just a little downing.
I don’t like to be a downer, because I totally understand how it feels to be looking for positivity and coming across negativity instead. I consider myself to be more analytical than negative. Unfortunately, analysis can often result in pointing out the negative aspects of something.
However…I think I can explain why it is that you notice positivity coming from the pro-Thor anti-Loki blogs. Simply put -there’s a reason why people like the things that they do.
Thor appeals to a certain kind of person. More specifically, the manner in which he’s been characterized appeals to a certain kind of person. And that is the kind of person who finds movies like Ragnarok amusing. Thor is not a deep thinker. He’s not stupid by any means, but he’s not introspective. He’s not intellectual. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s just who he is. He’s a physical guy, for the most part. He’s a jock. He acts based on gut instinct. He doesn’t look below the surface of things. He sees no need to. He’s ego driven. And thus -he appeals to people who function similarly. The protagonist electrocuting his no good brother? That’s hilarious. Using the no good brother as a battering ram? He had it coming, of course. He’s no good. Duh!
To be perfectly honest, if one doesn’t dig TOO deeply, Ragnarok is a very entertaining movie. It’s visually stunning. The music is great. The dialogue is witty. If you completely disregard the established canon for the characters and don’t think too deeply about the implications of anything they are saying or doing, the movie is great fun. Thor fans are looking for what is explicit and Ragnarok is full of it.
Now -Loki fans are the opposite of that. They are deep thinkers. They take things very seriously. They want to to know the WHY of everything. They are largely made up of people who know what it is to be rejected and despised, or at the very least, to feel different. They see the pain that is unspoken. Behind every one of Loki’s words or actions, they see the contributing trauma. They see more than what is shown. Loki fans are always looking for what is implicit. Give them a film directed by a Shakespearean actor like Sir Kenneth Branagh and they will are happy as a pig in shit.
So, Ragnarok is not without merit. But you’re not likely to find many die hard Loki fans who don’t have at least some criticisms of its treatment of their favorite character.
I think maybe my calling certain blogs “anti-Loki” is a bit strong, through they are definitely pro-Thor. I don’t believe that people who prefer Thor are necessarily more shallow or less introspective, or that people who prefer Loki are deeper thinkers. It feels too much like generalizing and slapping a label on people. I have encountered a number of intelligent analytical people who loved Ragnarok and who also see Loki as a complex character more than a villain and who are pro-Loki AND pro-Thor (What do I even mean by pro-Thor? I guess I mean that they didn’t see Thor’s actions/characterization in Ragnarok as mainly problematic). I wish there were more of those people.
I’m not saying I want to see zero criticisms, I’m saying I want to see some other discussion mixed in as well. A lot of the problems Loki fans on here have seem to be with Ragnarok dismissing Loki’s past sufferings, experiences and depth as a character, when I don’t feel it did that. I feel like Loki changed and grew in this film, as he does in every film he has appeared in. To say that Loki has been moving beyond his past pain and trauma is not the same as belittling those experiences, even if I agree that it is easy to read the film as saying that Loki should “just get over it.” And that is one legitimate interpretation of the film, but it is not the only one, and it is not mine. I take issue with the concept that, if you can move on in any way from your past pain, if you can get better, then your pain and struggles must not have been real in the first place. It’s invalidating. That kind of thinking has got me stuck a long time before. It has got many people who suffer from mental illness stuck.
I appreciate Loki in Ragnarok, because he has clearly done some healing for himself in the interval, has started being willing to discuss some of what he went through (in the play and in his convo with Thor in prison), some of the sharpest pain has worn off, but he is still recovering, still struggling with how exactly to move on from it and who exactly he is in the aftermath. This is not unusual for those who have gone through trauma/mental illness, this is part of the recovery period where they are looking to build their life back.
Loki was afraid to confront Hela, which has been criticized as a cowardly characterization of the character – but I disagree. Fear is not cowardly, fear is a survival mechanism. Loki in the Avengers and in TDW would probably have thrown himself recklessly into the fight, regardless of the odds (and in this case I’m certain the odds are that Hela would have easily defeated them both and Loki KNOWS the odds because he isn’t actually stupid), because he was self-destructive and didn’t truly care about his life. In contrast in Thor 1, before he learns the shattering truth and even before he gives up all hope on the Bifrost, Loki clearly favored non-confrontational methods first, as on Jotunheim when he preferred to placate rather than provoke Laufey. In moving past some of his self-destructiveness, Loki is in a way going back to who he was before. There was nothing to be won from confronting Hela then and there, what he couldn’t account for in his panic was her following.
In my opinion, Loki was seeking his sense of direction in this film. He has overcome some of his past self-destructiveness, but without yet having a clear idea of where to go from here. Like I said, he’s been recovering, it’s a tenuous period where he is rediscovering and redefining himself, he’s going back and looking at his memories and taking back his own narrative – where he was once “the monster that parents tell their children about,” he chooses to be the “savior of Asgard” – but it’s a process and he was just not ready yet to confront Hela and save Asgard.
Loki says “Take US back” which means him AND Thor, and this is key. Loki was trying to get Thor to stay on Sakaar, and I’ve discussed this before, but I personally think Loki’s main, selfish goal throughout most of the film was to keep Thor alive, to not lose the last of his family. On the one hand, I consider this bravery, that Loki seems to have reached a level of honesty with himself, that he does value his family, the family that let him down and hurt him, inadvertently or not, and that could still reject him (see again his conversation with Thor, he had to know that Thor might still reject his help and invalidate his sincerity), rather than simply pushing them away and running from the pain of past and potential rejection.
Ragnarok is not perfect, obviously. The dynamic between the brothers is unbalanced, and Loki might not have returned to Thor’s side for the healthiest of reasons – their relationship will always have a flavor of codependency to me. But for me, this does not invalidate what I consider to be good character development and progress on Loki’s part. Besides, I love that I have a reflection of how messed-up and hurtful relationships can be in real life, even when the other person does love you. I also disagree that the narrative affirms Thor at every turning, he is mocked plenty as well while he flounders in Sakaar at the mercy of Valkyrie and the Grandmaster. The film stops mocking both Thor and Loki once they are back on Asgard working towards a selfless goal, rescuing the survivors on Asgard.
It’s just my opinion. I get most people will probably disagree with me, and that’s okay.
I can’t speak for other Loki fans who have been criticizing Ragnarok, but my problem with its depiction of Loki’s psychology is not that it shows him having “moved past” his trauma; rather, it either ignores it, or actively mocks and minimizes it. A few people who have a negative overall opinion of TR, like @foundlingmother, have decided for the purpose of fanfiction (or avoiding despair) to read the play as Loki’s self-therapy, his attempt to come to terms with his heritage and achieve some kind of catharsis regarding his sacrifice… but that’s an extremely generous interpretation, and I doubt very much that it’s the one the film’s creators (screenwriter Eric Pearson as well as director Taika Waititi) intended. The film doesn’t even acknowledge that Loki’s Jotun heritage was ever a problem for him or for Asgard; if the revelation in the play was intended to show reconciliation of himself and/or Asgard to the idea, it might have alluded to the fact that Asgardians (used to) regard Frost Giants as monsters. It also seems implausible that it’s supposed to help him move past his near-death experience, because the movie never acknowledges that Loki was actually stabbed, whether or not he believed he was going to die. Loki never contests Thor’s claim that he “faked his death” – suggesting that he staged the whole thing – and the movie invites us to think that the only reason he did it was to usurp the throne, and that the only reason he did that was so he could glorify himself and live in luxury, rather than, say, hiding from Thanos and trying to keep the Infinity Stones away from him, or even taking (not totally unjustified) revenge on Odin for his lies and maltreatment.
Someone else pointed out recently that the play has Loki say “I’m sorry about that thing with the Tesseract. I just couldn’t help myself,” and then his next line is “I’m a trickster,” which seems to be intended as an explanation. I guess I can see why he wouldn’t want to reveal to all of Asgard that he was under severe pressure from a bigger supervillain… but he didn’t have to mention it at all. This, and the implied explanation for Loki’s seizing the throne, is a general pattern: TR consistently reduces Loki’s motivation to “I’m a trickster, it’s in my nature” – or, effectively, “I did it for the lulz” – when his motivations in previous films have never been that simplistic. Arguably, letting the Frost Giants in to disrupt Thor’s coronation and goading him into trying to go to Jotunheim might have been partly out of mischief (“to ruin my brother’s big day”), but it was also because he wanted to prove to Odin that Thor wasn’t ready to rule – and he wasn’t wrong about that. His reasons for lying, betraying Thor, and causing destruction throughout Thor are envy and resentment, the desire to prove himself to Odin, and emotional pain over the revelation of his origins. His reasons for invading Earth in The Avengers are ambition, anger at Thor and Odin, and some level of coercion from Thanos.
There are definitely respects in which Loki acts like a trickster in earlier films, weaving complicated schemes, delighting in chaos, and hiding his true intentions; but he always has comprehensible, psychologically realistic motivations for his crimes and betrayals. What’s more, it should be clear from watching the previous movies that he almost never enjoys betraying Thor. FFS, he’s crying while he fights him at the end of Thor; he’s obviously affected, even tempted, by Thor’s pleas for him to come home in The Avengers, he hesitates before he drops the cage, he has tears in his eyes when he stabs Thor on the tower. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, TR ignores all of that and scrapes Loki’s psychology paper-thin, essentializing him as a simplistic version of the trickster archetype who just can’t resist the urge to betray people for shits and giggles.
It’s only because of this denial of Loki’s psychological depth and motivational complexity that TR can set up the bit where Thor “tricks the trickster” and gives that lecture about change. As @endiness (and others, probably) has speculated, the creators seem to have ignored all of Loki’s character development in previous films precisely so that Thor can get all the credit for his “reform” and “redemption.” It’s not at all clear why Loki betrays Thor on Sakaar; again, people trying to rescue the movie’s characterization can speculate that it’s because Loki is pissed at Thor for dismissing him, or maybe to keep Thor from what Loki thinks of as a suicide mission to fight Hela, but I think (and Thor’s little speech strongly suggests) the movie wants us to assume Loki did it for the same reason it claims he went after the Tesseract: “I just couldn’t help myself. I’m a trickster.” It’s really kind of rich that Thor is preaching at Loki about growth and change, considering how much Loki has changed over the course of the films, while TR regresses Thor back to the brash arrogance of the first film – no, worse; it makes him narcissistic and cruel in a way he wasn’t even at the beginning of Thor, as oblivious and insensitive as he could be. Many of the people who condemn TR are people who love Thor (almost) as much as they love Loki, and all of them agree that it ruins Thor’s character even more than Loki’s. I kind of don’t understand how the “Thor stans” can still call him a kindhearted little ray of sunshine in light of his behavior toward Bruce/Hulk as well as Loki… but as I said before, I think they’re motivated to like the movie and the version of Thor that together put Loki in his place.
As I’ve said, it’s possible to give the portrayal of Loki a more generous interpretation than I’ve offered, but part of the reason I seriously doubt it’s intended that way is that if you put the text of the movie, including the mocking tone of the little play, together with Taika Waititi’s interviews and other conduct, you get a picture of someone who is contemptuous of the rest of the Thor franchise, of Loki as a character, of Tom Hiddleston as an actor, and of Tom Hiddleston-as-Loki’s mostly female fans. Of course, people who are more gung-ho than I am about “the death of the author” have a policy of ignoring the artist’s intentions entirely, and that might be a good strategy if you want to stay positive about the movie.
I saw a post lamenting that there isn’t more “in-depth positive discussion” of Thor: Ragnarok from people other than anti-Loki Thor stans and Thorki shippers (who are probably also, incidentally, more Thor than Loki fans) and I’m like…
I kind of want to reblog with the observation that, from my own experience and that of others whose commentary I’ve seen, it’s possible to stay positive about the movie only if you don’t think very hard about it: a number of people who liked it initially (myself included) soured on it as soon as they started thinking seriously about its treatment of the characters, and some people have said that they’re deliberately avoiding thinking very deeply about it because they want to be able to keep enjoying it. But I also don’t want the OP to block me because I like their art, so I think I’d better not.
*shrugs* Thanks, but… You could have commented if you wanted to? I haven’t blocked anyone for disagreeing with me, or in fact anyone at all from that thread. Contrary to how it may look, I can take dissenting opinions and discussion. I don’t actually block people for disagreeing or shipping what they want or whatever.
And your post would have been more relevant than a lot of the reblogs anyway.
But okay, you don’t need to comment if you don’t want, obviously. Just putting this out there.
Well, that certainly puts you in the minority around here…
I didn’t really expect you to respond because I’m pretty sure you don’t follow me, but since you did… there’s definitely a reason most people who are fans of Loki in the first instance, who came to love the character as he’s been developed in previous MCU films, strongly dislike Thor: Ragnarok, or come to dislike it as soon as they think much about how it handled Loki’s character AND Thor’s (and Bruce Banner’s, but that’s less important to most of us). I suspect the reason Thor fans haven’t done that deep thinking is because they’re strongly motivated to like the movie that was intended to make Thor the star of his own show, that allows him to finally get the better (in some sense) of Loki, who has been consistently upstaging him.
I’ve seen your longer post explaining your take on Loki’s character in Ragnarok and it’s probably easier to respond to it directly. You can take or leave my arguments, obviously.
That’s a nice change from CH and TW going “pfffft Shakespeare’s stoopid, why you take this so serious Tom, what we need is more anus jokes”. I love that RDJ specifically told Tom what a great job he did in the more Shakespearean version of MCU.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I saw a post lamenting that there isn’t more “in-depth positive discussion” of Thor: Ragnarok from people other than anti-Loki Thor stans and Thorki shippers (who are probably also, incidentally, more Thor than Loki fans) and I’m like…
I kind of want to reblog with the observation that, from my own experience and that of others whose commentary I’ve seen, it’s possible to stay positive about the movie only if you don’t think very hard about it: a number of people who liked it initially (myself included) soured on it as soon as they started thinking seriously about its treatment of the characters, and some people have said that they’re deliberately avoiding thinking very deeply about it because they want to be able to keep enjoying it. But I also don’t want the OP to block me because I like their art, so I think I’d better not.
i think about this a lot but how much better would thor 1 be if we got to see thor react to the fact that his beloved brother was a race that he grew up wanting to slaughter?? like was that not an important plot point?? THAT’S a better way for thor to realize that killing just to conquer is wrong, that’s how he should have realized the error of his ways, not just meeting mortals and wanting to protect them, but by hurting someone that he loved because of his arrogant ignorance and prejudice
It makes Thor and Loki’s relationship the most important in the movie since it’s the relationship impacting Thor’s character arc, and that’s how it should be in a Thor movie.
The people Thor wants to conquer are Frost Giants, not humans. Asgard’s opinion of Midgard is in no way comparable to its opinion of Jotunheim. Learning how nice and cool humans are shouldn’t impact how he feels about Jotunheim. This is why I explain his change of heart in other ways.
The trouble is, I think a small change like, for instance, Thor noticing Loki turning blue when the Frost Giant touches him would change the plot entirely. If Thor had noticed that, he’d have grabbed Loki and noped the fuck out of the battle on Jotunheim. The conversation between him and Odin would have been entirely different. He probably wouldn’t have been banished, which means Loki wouldn’t have been regent.
There’s an interesting fanfic in that idea. (Obviously there are already works that have Thor find out Loki’s a Frost Giant and never get banished, but most of the ones I’ve read are pro-Odin, pro-Asgard, and anti-Jotunheim, and that’s just not my cup of tea.)
Oddly enough, I strongly disagree, because that change would make the movie *less* about their relationship and less compelling as a narrative. This isn’t to say I don’t want it to be addressed (wow, do I ever want a scene where they actually confront that particular revelation between them), but having that take place in Thor 1 would have dramatically weakened the story as a whole.
First, it wouldn’t make sense in terms of Thor’s character as it had been portrayed up till that point (and forward as well). This a character who is extremely kind and generous and good-hearted but also prone to taking too much for granted when things seem fine and whose arrogant streak makes him a bit blind to the perspectives of others. The growth that needs to occur in the first movie is not “learning that killing to conquer is wrong,” even though it takes place in that context. The way Thor needs to grow is to have his perspective get a shaking. He gets knocked down a peg, has to accept help from people he would have considered weaker, finds himself in a situation where all the things he counted on–his own position, his expected trajectory in life, the people he loved and trusted–are gone and he has to figure out who he is in this new situation and reevaluate the choices that got him there. He would not learn those lessons from finding out that Loki was an abandoned Jotun baby that Odin took in after the war. But moreover, the person Thor is at the beginning of the movie has not yet had the growth necessary to respond in any useful way to that revelation. The Thor who yells back at Odin that he’s a old fool for not waging preemptive war on Jotunheim for the vault incident would not have come quickly enough to the right understanding if he had seen Loki’s hand turn blue. He’d have suspected a trick or a curse (as Loki did also), and if those were disproved and he actually learned the truth at that point? Does anyone actually believe this would not have been disastrous? He’d have handled it so badly, and while there could certainly have been an interesting story there (quite a few fics’ worth), it would have very likely been an uglier one and one less focused on their brotherly relationship.
The reason the actual movie was in fact entirely focused on their relationship even though they spent half the movie not even on the same realm is that everything that happens to Thor–from deciding to go to Jotunheim to being banished to (nearly) dying at the hand of the Destroyer–was brought into motion by Loki, and we as the audience are aware of this but, crucially, Thor is not. It is their relationship playing out in shadows and reflections. We can see and understand Loki’s conflict and Loki’s resentment and Loki’s turmoil and the context for it. And at the same time we can see Thor’s growth as he deals with the shock of his changed circumstances. We can see Thor’s better traits shining through in his own trials. And we can see Thor’s blindness to what’s happening with Loki (and Loki’s awareness of Thor’s blindness) and how that mirrors the things that grew Loki’s resentment over the years. We’re able to see both of their stories unfolding at the same time and how completely connected these are even though they are not taking place in the same physical space. And then when they are in the same space–first, Loki visiting Thor on Midgard to lie to him, and then after Thor regains Mjolnir and returns to Asgard–we can watch as their relationship evolves as Thor grows and Loki cracks. Thor pleading with Loki, looking to him as a lifeline, as the most trusted person in Thor’s old life, and Loki turning him away because he can’t, things can’t go back to how they were, and Loki doesn’t trust Thor with this knowledge. And then Thor’s return, grown and changed and having to deal with knowing that something has gone very wrong with Loki but he lacks an understanding of what; in this he is still having to face the ripples of his old arrogance and ignorance, the problems that he had not even been aware of in his relationship with his brother.
And this conflict unfolding at this point, after Thor has had the shakeup of being banished, and after Loki has had time to dig himself well into a violent breakdown–Thor has had the necessary growth to deal with this situation better, but the stakes have gotten higher and the situation has gotten worse and all our hearts break because their goals are fundamentally in conflict so someone has to lose–and we have seen through both their eyes and we know how important their relationship is to both of them, so that means there can be no real winning, either.
I don’t think you’d get that same effect if you formulated the story so that it dealt with that relationship and Loki’s origins head-on.
If the story had been centered on Thor learning a lesson about not killing Jotnar because Loki was one, it would have been very likely to become an after-school special on prejudice.
Dealing with it obliquely, with their relationship reflected in and infused through everything that happens–that makes the story so much more.
I happen to agree with a lot of what you said @illwynd, which is why I specified that I think it would make for an interesting fic. I love the idea of Loki’s heritage being dealt with head-on, but I prefer for the sake of the overall relationship arc between Thor and Loki in the MCU that Thor retain its structure (not least because we have the option to explore these canon divergent AUs, but also diverge from canon in completely different ways at completely different points). That said, I’d still have preferred if they left in the scenes that hinted at Thor’s vulnerability. I think it helps to explain why three days in an insecure position is enough to sober Thor up sufficiently.
Yeah, I guessed that we were at least somewhat on the same page! I was mainly disagreeing with the idea expressed in the OP that Thor 1 would have been a better movie by dealing with that aspect explicitly, and I wanted to go into why I thought so, because there is a bit of a trend lately to discuss Thor 1 (and Avengers and TDW) in what are actually pretty inaccurate ways and I wanted to make sure to give adequate context.
If you mean the deleted scenes, yes, at least most of those I wish they had kept in as well! One of my favorite scenes in the whole damn thing is the deleted/extended version of Loki goading Thor into going to Jotunheim. There’s just so much going on in it, so much hinted history between them. 😀
After reading @illwynd‘s lovely essay above, I completely agree; I didn’t think it all the way through before sharing the original post. The fact that so much of the plot turns on incomplete information and misunderstandings can make it infuriating to watch but also very Shakespearean. Or Attic-tragedian, even. And I absolutely know what you mean about people discussing the previous movies in inaccurate ways: they’ve been reading the Ragnarok retconning of their characters back into previous movies – most notably, by portraying all of Loki’s actions as completely unmotivated and unintelligible, the way they’re framed in Ragnarok; claiming that everything he does, from letting the Jotnar in to disrupt Thor’s coronation to attempting to destroy Jotunheim, was done just because he’s “the god of mischief” and likes to fuck shit up for no reason.
The important thing about Thor’s banishment to Earth is that it represents the “high brought low” trope (an expression that my English prof pal @fuckyeahrichardiii taught me; a literary education is never complete). I came across a strange reblog chain once where people were describing Thor 1 as a case of “meeting the savages,” where Thor’s sojourn on Earth, among people he considered his racial inferiors, was supposed to teach him to respect the Jotnar… I think in general (sorry, @foundlingmother) that there’s been a bit too much reading present concerns about racism and colonialism into the Thor movies; Asgard is a premodern pagan society, and I suspect they really don’t think about other races and cultures the way we do now. It used to be completely normal to utterly crush your enemies (hence the thing in the Old Testament about eradicating the Amalekites, down to their sheep and cattle) and even make their land uninhabitable so they wouldn’t be able to rise up and pose a threat any time soon (hence the custom of sowing fields with salt, as the Romans did to the Carthaginians). Not that any of this is good, just that it seems a little strange to me to approach Asgard with modern critiques of colonialism, which presuppose that the conquerors themselves espouse a basically Christian, post-Enlightenment moral worldview.
The point of Thor’s banishment, from Odin’s POV as well as that of the film, was to humble him by making him helpless and forcing him to rely on the hospitality of others (and so much the better if they’re weaker and beneath him in station!), not to teach him respect for other cultures (clearly, as we see in TDW, Odin doesn’t care about that). Thor’s practical humility, so to speak, does come along with a measure of epistemic humility: he learns to question the things he used to take for granted, to question his own perspective, and therefore to give more consideration to the perspectives of others. Importantly, he learns to question what he’d always believed (indeed, been taught by Odin to believe) about his own worth relative to others, including Midgardians, Loki, and (to some degree) Frost Giants.
I thought this part of illwynd’s commentary was especially insightful (and heartbreaking):
And then when they are in the same space – first, Loki visiting Thor on Midgard to lie to him, and then after Thor regains Mjolnir and returns to Asgard – we can watch as their relationship evolves as Thor grows and Loki cracks. Thor pleading with Loki, looking to him as a lifeline, as the most trusted person in Thor’s old life, and Loki turning him away because he can’t, things can’t go back to how they were, and Loki doesn’t trust Thor with this knowledge. And then Thor’s return, grown and changed and having to deal with knowing that something has gone very wrong with Loki but he lacks an understanding of what; in this he is still having to face the ripples of his old arrogance and ignorance, the problems that he had not even been aware of in his relationship with his brother.
What’s so heartbreaking is that Loki, at this point, has no reason to trust Thor with the terrible secret of his birth, no reason to trust that he’s changed and become more open-minded and sensitive to Loki’s feelings and perspective. I’ve remarked before on how Thor’s apology to Loki after he sends the Destroyer to Midgard – “Brother, whatever I have done to wrong you, whatever I have done to lead you to do this, I am truly sorry” – is kind of a non-apology, because it’s hard to truly repent (which is to say, rethink, reevaluate) something you don’t know you did. So you can’t entirely blame Loki for not trusting that apology or taking it seriously; but at this point you also can’t entirely blame newly matured Thor for not knowing what immature arrogant Thor did, because immature Thor was too blind and self-centered to really be aware of the ways he was neglecting and belittling Loki and how much it hurt him, and mature Thor doesn’t really have any more information, just a new willingness to listen. So their confrontation has the kind of inevitability you want from a good Shakespearean tragedy: just one little bit of information shared at the right time could avert the whole thing (I’ve even written some little AU vignettes along those lines), but the urgency of the situation and the heightened emotions means there’s no real opportunity for that information to be exchanged.
Definitely planning to write fic where Thor and Loki actually discuss the Jotun heritage thing… but set after Thor’s long trajectory of maturation (and ignoring TR’s reversal of that trajectory, while accepting the broad outlines of the plot as canon).
#Me talking about Thor Ragnarok and Taika Waititi x
More like he did a character assassination on Loki!
It was an even more gruesome character assassination of Thor, but strangely his fans seem not to mind…
RDJ is welcome to do his own movies under Waititi if he likes Ragnarok so much. Somehow I don’t think he will do that though.
Only if he wants Tony to be turned into an *actual* (as opposed to merely apparent) narcissist and have his traumatic experiences minimized and mocked. Because he’s just a rich kid from Malibu and we really shouldn’t care about his problems.
Loki is the Philosopher King 