Tag: thor ragnarok criticism

illwynd:

foundlingmother replied to your post: sorry, wdym by their breakup in Ragnarok?

Yes, more power to them. I just wish they wouldn’t imply we’re crazy and stupid (and flat out say we’re wrong) for not seeing it as positive… Like, I’m sorry I don’t see Thor leaving Loki with a device meant to keep slaves in line active on him as this sweet moment of brotherly acceptance. (Sorry, lots of posts getting on my nerves lately. Couldn’t help but vent.)

OK guess i lied about not going into any more detail in a public post. 

See, a lot of the complaints I have seen about it, and a lot of the derisive responses to those complaints, have been about whether the device itself was cruel. But to me, that’s… missing the point a bit, at least with the way I see it, because I am completely not complaining about the physical pain Thor inflicted on Loki. They can bash the shit out of each other, that’s fine; I’m sure if you tallied up who had hurt who when, they’d both have a long list. I do think it was… reckless, to say the least… for Thor to leave him there helpless without any certainty of who would find him, but I would be able to overlook that as a lapse in judgment under other circumstances.

What bothers me is why. Telling someone who has known trauma around identity and belonging “who you are is as a person is inadequate and I will disown you unless you change to suit my standards” is…

I mean, I know some folks reading this are not gonna hear what I’m saying but are going to hear what they think I’m saying. So let me clarify. I am not saying how horrible Thor is for saying it. I don’t care whether it’s right or wrong, an acceptable or unacceptable action. That is entirely irrelevant. It could be 100% justified… but it would not have achieved the end that the movie claims. What I’m saying is that regardless of whether Loki got out and followed him back to Asgard, and regardless of whether they hugged and made nice with each other, that conversation did the opposite of what needed to happen to heal their relationship, and it may have effectively destroyed any chance of future healing between them.

The fracture in their relationship was around trust—not just Thor’s trust in Loki but also Loki’s trust in Thor. That was something that TDW got very right, for all its other flaws, because it showed that Loki started to come back from the edge when Thor chose to extend trust to him, treated him like his brother, took him seriously, and generally allowed Loki to believe that their relationship was not permanently stained. What Loki needed was to be able to trust in Thor’s love for him: that it wasn’t just circumstantial. That he, as a person, mattered to Thor, and that Thor would be able to re-accept him after his transgressions and would continue to value him. And Thor showing him so through his actions was working to fix their relationship and give them the space to talk things through

with some kind of honesty

and work their shit out. It was working, to the extent that Loki fully intended to die to save Thor. (The fact that Loki took advantage of circumstances when he woke up alive doesn’t change that and is, to my thinking, wholly in line with his character and his need to not let his feelings be used against him. Just died for your brother in a blatant display of love and loyalty? whoop better go and be a dick to fuck that right up!).

But the above scene from Ragnarok, Thor’s ultimatum, would utterly shatter Loki’s trust in all of those things. And, importantly, it would do absolutely nothing to heal Thor’s trust in his brother, either, because… I mean, it was compliance under threat of abandonment. That really doesn’t prove anything about someone’s trustworthiness or whether they have “changed.” All it proves is that you know where their buttons are located.

And that is exactly where the movie leaves it, with trust thoroughly shattered on both sides. Which is the end of any relationship if serious action isn’t taken to repair that trust. But no such action is shown or even suggested. Loki coming to save the day wouldn’t do it; he’d rushed to Thor’s rescue as recently as the previous movie, so that’s hardly new. Them fighting side by side wouldn’t do it; they’d done that thousands of times before. Hugs likewise. And if the issues were deep and serious enough to cause the breaking of a centuries-long brotherly bond, how could they possibly be resolved off-screen, without so much as a hint of how it happened? They couldn’t. It just doesn’t work, narratively speaking.  

So to me, that movie ends with their relationship completely broken. They are inhabiting the same space and they are ostensibly on peaceful terms, but any basis for trust has been destroyed. By any meaningful definition, their relationship is deader than a doornail.

And to me it is fitting, under those circumstances, that Loki would go and get himself killed kinda-sorta on purpose at the first opportunity as well. I mean, last time he was in a similar situation of having been rejected by those he cared about, he threw himself into an abyss. And this time he even got to continue to try to prove himself to Thor while doing it, just like one might feel compelled to do after such an ultimatum.

So yeah that’s why I call it a breakup. Because I don’t see any other way I can interpret it.

Thank you so much for saying this publicly. It was talking to you that led me to realize that Ragnarok destroyed the main characters, especially Thor, so thoroughly that I couldn’t make excuses for it, couldn’t keep liking it for bringing Thor and Loki back together even if I was uncomfortable with the way it belittled Loki’s grievances and turned Thor more self-absorbed than he had been at the beginning of Thor 1. Thank you for adding this to the discussion and redirecting it to something that really is more important than the points it has been getting unproductively stuck on. I’ll admit to getting stuck on the obedience disk, too, because one of the things that made me most deeply uncomfortable, even before you convinced me that Thor* was never giving Loki a genuine choice, was how smug, how self-satisfied and even gleeful Thor looked while seeing Loki in pain. But you’re right that that by itself could be explained as the anger of the moment (and I did try to explain it that way in some post-Ragnarok Thorki fanfiction, while also having Loki try to re-assert some independence and Thor actually listen to Loki’s side of things… as if that wouldn’t be too little, too late).

I think this point is especially important and unusual in the discourse:

I am not saying how horrible Thor is for saying it. I don’t care whether it’s right or wrong, an acceptable or unacceptable action. That is entirely irrelevant. It could be 100% justified… but it would not have achieved the end that the movie claims. What I’m saying is that regardless of whether Loki got out and followed him back to Asgard, and regardless of whether they hugged and made nice with each other, that conversation did the opposite of what needed to happen to heal their relationship, and it may have effectively destroyed any chance of future healing between them.

It seems like a lot of the disagreement between the Loki fans (myself included) and the Thor* stans has been about whether Thor* was justified in doing what he did. The Thor* stans insist that Loki was a terrible brother, constantly stabbing and betraying Thor, so he deserved to be punished and needed to be told that Thor* wasn’t going to put up with his shit anymore; and the Loki fans have probably spent too much time arguing that before Thor 1 Loki hadn’t given Thor any reason to mistrust him, and since then he’s had reasons for all of his betrayals. I think some of us have also added that punishment and ultimatum aren’t the means to real reconciliation, but it’s probably focused too much on whether or not Thor* is being physically, psychologically, and/or emotionally “abusive,” with all the baggage that word carries with it.

You’re emphasizing exactly the right issue that everyone invested in Thor and Loki’s relationship, whether sexual/romantic or just brotherly, should care about, regardless of which character they favor and independent of the moralistic language that people on Tumblr love to weaponize (and I don’t exempt myself here).

Telling someone who has known trauma around identity and belonging “who you are is as a person is inadequate and I will disown you unless you change to suit my standards” is…

The fracture in their relationship was around trust—not just Thor’s trust in Loki but also Loki’s trust in Thor. … What Loki needed was to be able to trust in Thor’s love for him: that it wasn’t just circumstantial. That he, as a person, mattered to Thor, and that Thor would be able to re-accept him after his transgressions and would continue to value him. …

But the above scene from Ragnarok, Thor’s ultimatum, would utterly shatter Loki’s trust in all of those things. And, importantly, it would do absolutely nothing to heal Thor’s trust in his brother, either, because… I mean, it was compliance under threat of abandonment. That really doesn’t prove anything about someone’s trustworthiness or whether they have “changed.” All it proves is that you know where their buttons are located.

OK, now all I’m doing is quoting you, but that’s because I really like the way you put it and it’s really, really important.

philosopherking1887:

foundlingmother replied to your post “Some Nietzsche quotes that express my thoughts on The Tumblr Consensus”

My favorite is when they offer no arguments for what they believe, just respond to yours with, “If you believe that, you’re wrong.” I’ve seen this a lot when I call the obedience disk a torture device. I say it’s used on slaves. I say that it’s clearly shown to be painful for Thor and Loki. I say it makes it impossible for Loki to move (and even if he wasn’t in pain, your muscles spasming for an indeterminate amount of time would be fucking horrible).

I point to the intention in the script in extreme cases. Yet still I am wrong. I am delusional. And I’m one of those people who don’t care if people want to think of it as not that bad, because I get the appeal of faith, but I get very irritated when my reasoning is dismissed outright.

Flat, un-argued-for denial – effectively, the playground whine of “nuh-uh” – is always fun, but even better is when they blow past both counterargument and contradiction and go straight for accusations and insults. These tend to come in two flavors:

1. “You’re just a stupid straight girl who’s wet for Whedon’s psychopathic bad boy Tom Hiddleston in leather and wants him to dominate you like 50 Shades of Grey.” Often comes with a side of “You’re too homophobic for a queer character you can’t fetishize through slash,” ignoring the facts that a) Ragnarok never explicitly confirms that Loki is queer; b) the gay relationship that it strongly implies is a fucked-up exploitative sugar daddy arrangement with a sadistic, casually murderous slavemaster; and c) at the same time that it plays up Loki’s gay coding, it also presents him as shallow, narcissistic, stupid, and ineffectual. Real great queer representation, that. Not to mention that the “fetishizing through slash” has, if anything, ramped up post-Ragnarok (both Thorki and Frostmaster).

2. “You must just be a racist who hates that people of color are succeeding if you don’t worship Taika Waititi and everything he says, does, and makes.” There’s really no good way to rebut this one, because once you’ve been accused of racism on Tumblr there’s always a presumption of guilt. You say you loved Black Panther? Well, you must be racist against Maori/Polynesian/indigenous people. You really liked Moana? That’s like saying “Some of my best friends are [fill in the racial group].” You liked What We Do in the Shadows but thought that irreverent tone and the disrespect for the main characters was inappropriate for a Thor movie? You’re just mad because a POC wasn’t showing proper respect for white male characters and you can’t stand that characters of color (Valkyrie and Heimdall) were more awesome than the white characters. You liked Valkyrie and Heimdall in Ragnarok but that’s not enough to outweigh the outrageous retcon of Thor and Loki, the main characters you’ve been invested in for 3-4 movies? Why do you think white characters are so much more important than characters of color?

The notes on this post are showing 3 reblogs that I can’t look at when I click; it doesn’t even show the URLs that reblogged (if they exist). Is this just a weird Tumblr malfunction, or are people who have blocked me reblogging my shit again? If the latter, could some kind soul tell me who they are so that I can block them back? (Which is hard when you can’t search for someone’s URL… oh, the joys of being outspoken with unpopular opinions.)

foundlingmother replied to your post “Some Nietzsche quotes that express my thoughts on The Tumblr Consensus”

My favorite is when they offer no arguments for what they believe, just respond to yours with, “If you believe that, you’re wrong.” I’ve seen this a lot when I call the obedience disk a torture device. I say it’s used on slaves. I say that it’s clearly shown to be painful for Thor and Loki. I say it makes it impossible for Loki to move (and even if he wasn’t in pain, your muscles spasming for an indeterminate amount of time would be fucking horrible).

I point to the intention in the script in extreme cases. Yet still I am wrong. I am delusional. And I’m one of those people who don’t care if people want to think of it as not that bad, because I get the appeal of faith, but I get very irritated when my reasoning is dismissed outright.

Flat, un-argued-for denial – effectively, the playground whine of “nuh-uh” – is always fun, but even better is when they blow past both counterargument and contradiction and go straight for accusations and insults. These tend to come in two flavors:

1. “You’re just a stupid straight girl who’s wet for Whedon’s psychopathic bad boy Tom Hiddleston in leather and wants him to dominate you like 50 Shades of Grey.” Often comes with a side of “You’re too homophobic for a queer character you can’t fetishize through slash,” ignoring the facts that a) Ragnarok never explicitly confirms that Loki is queer; b) the gay relationship that it strongly implies is a fucked-up exploitative sugar daddy arrangement with a sadistic, casually murderous slavemaster; and c) at the same time that it plays up Loki’s gay coding, it also presents him as shallow, narcissistic, stupid, and ineffectual. Real great queer representation, that. Not to mention that the “fetishizing through slash” has, if anything, ramped up post-Ragnarok (both Thorki and Frostmaster).

2. “You must just be a racist who hates that people of color are succeeding if you don’t worship Taika Waititi and everything he says, does, and makes.” There’s really no good way to rebut this one, because once you’ve been accused of racism on Tumblr there’s always a presumption of guilt. You say you loved Black Panther? Well, you must be racist against Maori/Polynesian/indigenous people. You really liked Moana? That’s like saying “Some of my best friends are [fill in the racial group].” You liked What We Do in the Shadows but thought that irreverent tone and the disrespect for the main characters was inappropriate for a Thor movie? You’re just mad because a POC wasn’t showing proper respect for white male characters and you can’t stand that characters of color (Valkyrie and Heimdall) were more awesome than the white characters. You liked Valkyrie and Heimdall in Ragnarok but that’s not enough to outweigh the outrageous retcon of Thor and Loki, the main characters you’ve been invested in for 3-4 movies? Why do you think white characters are so much more important than characters of color?

yume-no-fantasy:

lucianalight:

rewritefate:

a-p-day-in-hell:

rewritefate:

a-p-day-in-hell:

brolinjosh:

Thor’s last words to Loki vs. Loki’s last words to Thor

Even tho Loki does care about Thor even if he has an hard time admitting it, he’s still the worst brother tbh. He betrayed Thor like an hundred times over, and Thanos attacking the ship and killing half of the asgardians is entirely his fault. Thor saying this was means to be a funny scene but if we want to read more into it, he was refferring to the fact that Loki stole the tesseract while they were in the middle of a huge battle and put a huge target on the asgardian ship. In the end, Loki choose the right side but it doesn’t mean everything he did before is forgotten and if he had came out of it alive,Thor would have totally punched him in the face and then he would have hugged him

Sigh…There are so many wrong things in your statement, I’m gonna put a little bit of my thought.

“

He betrayed Thor like an hundred times over”

Loki didn’t betray Thor “a hundred times over” , he is pretty loyal to Thor for a century, accompany Thor when Thor is still he is an arrogant war-monger. 

“

Even tho Loki does care about Thor even if he has an hard time admitting it, he’s still the worst brother tbh.”

Are you gonna put aside all wrong doings Thor does to Loki like this one :

And then just straight out labeling Loki as “the worst brother”? 

Yeah Thor used to be a prick but he grew out of it and being arrogant is nothing compared to what Loki has done. I love Loki, I really do but from Thor’s point of view, he’s been betrayed multiple times by him. You’re using a gif of one of his worst betreyal, pushing Thor on this stupid mission knowing it would end badly and could lead to a war so Thor wouldn’t be king. Sure, it’s a good thing Thor didn’t became king then bc he was immature but Loki just wanted the throne for himself, he didn’t care for the well being of Asgard. And then he goes to earth and tell Thor his father is dead, how fucked up is that? And then he try to kill Thor when he’s mortal. Still, after all that, Thor try to save Loki from falling and is heartbroken over his death.

Then New York happen, Loki has been tortured yeah but he doesn’t mind killing hundred of people that he knows his brother is protecting, he actually enjoy that and he stab Thor at the end.

Loki help Thor in the dark world but for his own revenge over his mother’s death and then, he still pretend to be dead so he can have the throne for himself, not caring as his brother, once again, cry over his death. The only good thing he does is saving Jane.

Thor ragnarok show us more of their wonderful relationship as children, funny but a little fucked up on loki’s part. Thor learn that Loki left Odin on earth which led to his death away from his people and the liberation of Hela. He doesn’t do anything to keep Thor from becoming a slave for the great master and try to betray him again when they leave but Thor is used to it by then and his plan doesn’t work. Okay, at the end, he makes the right call bc sometimes, he can be good and help save the asgardians but he can’t help taking the tesseract with him despite everything happening at the moment.

And it all lead it to infinity war which I already explained. But yeah, you’re right, Thor used to be a little arrogant before and sometimes though he was above his brother, which he technically was at this moment as he was heir to the throne and Loki was under his orders. But like I said, Thor grew out of his arrogant phase, thanks to loki’s “help” but Loki has always considered himself superior to Thor and I’m not sure he ever stopped, no matter how much he actually love his brother.

So yeah, Loki is the worst brother and anyone would have given up on him a long time ago but Thor is just that good.

“

Yeah Thor used to be a prick but he grew out of it and being arrogant is nothing compared to what Loki has done”

Thor has killed over 3000 people, while being a war-monger he is, he is no better than Loki himself. It’s just the way Thor killing those people is so fit with the Asgardian culture, not with a tricks or magic. Don’t try to justify Thor actions in the past with “he used to be a prick”. 

“

pushing Thor on this stupid mission knowing it would end badly and could lead to a war so Thor wouldn’t be king

“

If you look more detail, Loki mission is to showing Thor arrogant and reckless side in front of Odin to prevent Thor from getting the throne because Thor at that time wasn’t fit. Too reckless, his arrogant side will cause many conflicts. What Loki doing to Thor in Thor (2011) is just like what Thor doing to Hela in Thor Ragnarok, they both prevented their sibling from getting the throne because in their eyes, their sibling is not fit enough. 

“ You’re using a gif of one of his worst betreyal”

The scene where Thor told Loki to “Know his place” is Thor response to Loki advice to not attack those Frost Giant. Loki kindly asked Thor “Thor, please stop. Look around you, we are outnumbered”, and you know what Thor response “Know your place brother”, he straight out dismiss Loki, treating as Loki opinion didn’t matter, and the sad things is Loki didn’t even reply back, as if Thor dismiss him is just their usual habit. This scene actually implying to Thor and Loki dysfunctional relationship for 1000 years with Thor treating Loki as the inferior, along with Warrior Three and Sif. 

“

he actually enjoy that and he stab Thor at the end.”

No, he didn’t. Right after Loki stabbed Thor, there is a tears in his eyes. He is not enjoying to stab Thor.

“

he still pretend to be dead so he can have the throne for himself”

Loki never pretended to be dead, he is actually getting badly injured saving Thor from Kurse, Kevin Feige and Tom Hiddleston already confirmed that in the interview. It’s just that the fate decided that Loki still survives, and then he decided to get revenge on Odin by taking the throne , it has nothing to do with Thor. 

“

not caring as his brother, once again, cry over his death

“

The reason why Loki didn’t tell Thor why he is still alive because Thor promised him to return Loki back to the cell. “And afterward, this cell”- Thor promised Loki he would return Loki to his cell after using Loki help. Thor cries for Loki when he dies in the dark world but did Thor ever bother to bring and bury Loki body properly? No right? Shouldn’t Thor at least bring his body back to Asgard? 

“

Thor ragnarok show us more of their wonderful relationship as children, funny but a little fucked up on loki’s part.

“

The original canon of Thor and Loki childhood (confirmed by Kevin Feige and Kenneth Branagh” is Loki is the looked down kid, he looked up to Thor, he respected Thor, while Thor is the golden child, and he treated his brother with a superior big brother mindset. However, Chris Hemsworth and Taika Watiti want to change Loki and Thor childhood, with Thor being the bullied kid and Loki is the bully. However that’s not the case since in Thor 1, we viewer already showed Thor and Loki childhood. Loki was the quiet one, and Thor was an aggressive child,  “I will hunt all the monster down and slay them all !!”. Thor in the original canon is “more fucked up”

“

He doesn’t do anything to keep Thor from becoming a slave for the great master

“

Did you see the scene where Loki want to grieve together for Odin death with Thor? Loki did tried to get Thor to work together to get off from that place by overthrowing the Grandmaster first. And what is Thor response to him? No response, and then Thor just straight up accusing Loki “You faked your own death”. 

“

try to betray him again when they leave but Thor is used to it by then and his plan doesn’t work

“

Loki only try to betray Thor after Thor straight up shading him in the elevator with “maybe there is still good in you” line, and he did it to keep Thor safe from Hela if you actually noticed. Thor clearly use reverse-psychology on Loki in that elevator scene so he can use Loki help later. 

“

But like I said, Thor grew out of his arrogant phase, thanks to loki’s “help” but Loki has always considered himself superior to Thor

“

Loki considered himself as inferior to Thor, read all Thor novel. Thor treated him as inferior for a century and it’s effect Loki psychology. Unconsciously Loki considered himself as the inferior one and the reason why he want to fight Thor in Thor 1 and Avenger is to prove himself. You watch too much Thor ragnarok. 

“

So yeah, Loki is the worst brother and anyone would have given up on him a long time ago but Thor is just that good.

“

And now you just straight up labeling Loki as the worst brother, and clearly ignoring Thor wrong doing to Loki (with an excuse like “Thor is only a little bit arrogant”. I suggest you, don’t have a black and white perspective, Thor treatment to Loki is just as bad as Loki treatment to Thor. Thor treated Loki as inferior and always dismiss Loki feeling, even in Ragnarok and Infinity War. Did Thor even try to understand Loki perspective? He just straight out labeling Loki, just like you did. 

@juliabohemian @shine-of-asgard @lokiloveforever @edge-of-silvermoon @whitedaydream @lucianalight @seiramili7 @yume-no-fantasy @nooo-body 

@formysnowflake

Thanks for the tag @rewritefate and @seiramili7 ( in this thread) ! I can’t believe what I just read! You guys covered everything. I just add a few things.

“Even tho Loki does care about Thor even if he has an hard time admitting it, he’s still the worst brother tbh.”

Loki is the one who ever verbally stated that he loves Thor, twice I might add and got “Thank you” as answer! He is the one that tolerated a life time of being treated as inferior and he still loves Thor to the point that he’s ready to sacrifice his life not only for Thor(twice!) but also for Thor’s girlfriend(twice!) to prevent his brother from getting hurt. And he is the worst brother?!?!

“He betrayed Thor like an hundred times over”

No he only betrayed Thor in Thor 1. The other villainous things he did has nothing to do with Thor personally. His betrayal in TR doesn’t make sense because he knew there was a revolution going on and GM would no longer be in charge. So getting his favor was pointless. It only make sense if Loki was upset of Thor’s speech or wanted to prevent him from getting himself killed by Hela. Which makes it understandable.

“Thanos attacking the ship and killing half of the asgardians is entirely his fault.”

No it’s not. Loki’s choice to taking the Tesseract was completely logical. Thanos would find them with or without the Tesseract and having a bargaining chip is ultimately better than having none.

“Yeah Thor used to be a prick but he grew out of it and being arrogant is nothing compared to what Loki has done.”

He was more than just an arrogant person. He was the textbook narcissistic golden child before his banishment and the resulting abuse from this kind of personality will have a toll on anyone. And besides Loki was never in his right mind when he did all those horrible things.

“You’re using a gif of one of his worst betreyal, pushing Thor on this
stupid mission knowing it would end badly and could lead to a war so
Thor wouldn’t be king.”

“Loki’s worst betrayal”?! He did a service to their kingdom by preventing Thor from becoming the king! “Pushing Thor on this stupid mission”!? Oh my God! It’s not Loki’s fault that all Thor needed was an agreement with his opinion and feeling thrilled to have a chance in showing that he can be a better king than Odin! Loki didn’t push him to do anything!
“knowing it would end badly and could lead to a war so
Thor wouldn’t be king.” Did you miss the part when he told a guard to inform Odin so he prevent Thor from his stupid mission and getting them all killed

in the process? And the guard didn’t care enough to do it in time? Or the part that Heimdall let them go to Jotunheim despite the fact that it was forbidden. Or the part that Loki screamed that he never wanted the throne, only to be Thor’s equal? And all he attempted to do was prove himself worthy to Odin?

“Then New York happen,  Loki has been tortured yeah but he doesn’t mind
killing hundred of people that he knows his brother is protecting, he
actually enjoy that and he stab Thor at the end.”

He doesn’t mind killing hundred of people? He enjoy that? I think you once again miss the part when he looked with horror to the destruction in the Avengers and told Thor with regret in his voice that it was too late to stop it. And you definitely miss the part when he cried while he stabbed Thor. Does all this seems like enjoyment to you? Also did you forget the part where Thor admitted killing thousands of people? Or the part where he was killing Jotuns all the while grinning and was excited because of it?

“he still pretend to be dead so he can have the throne for himself, not caring as his brother, once again, cry over his death.”

Yeah, because offering the throne to Thor means he wanted it for himself. It’s not Loki’s fault that Thor declined it! Oh my God!

“Thor learn that Loki left Odin on earth which led to his death away from his people and the liberation of Hela.”

No, Odin’s death and Hela’s libration wasn’t Loki’s fault! God!!!

“Loki has always considered himself superior to Thor and I’m not sure he
ever stopped, no matter how much he actually love his brother.”

How can someone miss all the signs!? It was always Thor who saw himself superior. It was always Loki who saw himself as inferior to Thor and wanted to prove himself equal. It’s the core of his problems!!!

Thanks for the tag @rewritefate and @seiramili7  🙂 You guys and @lucianalight have already said a lot of what I want to say. I’ll just add some of my reactions to this.

Firstly: SIGH. 

“He betrayed Thor like a hundred times over”<-
See, this is what happens when you get brainwashed by Gagnarok. You think
that because you believe the “I trust you, you betray me, round and
round in circles we go” nonsense that Gagnarok!Thor said, that’s it.

“Thanos attacking the ship and killing half of the asgardians is
entirely his fault”<-So it’s Loki’s fault, not Thanos’? 

“Thor saying this was
means to be a funny scene”<- You’re right about this. When I went to
watch IW I was feeling so disappointed when Thor said to Loki “you really are
the worst brother”, but most of the other audience seemed to find it funny. So
yes, it was meant to be funny and also a clear reference to what Thor said to
Loki before: “maybe you’re not so bad after all”, which happens to be the only positive
affirmation Thor gave Loki in Gagnarok and is now negated just because he was
trying to be funny.

(Noteworthy fact: Thor was originally supposed to be a more serious
character in IW. But CH voiced concerns after Gagnarok portrayed the
character’s funnier side, apparently because he was “just so protective of what he built
with Taika” (his own words). That was why the IW writers Christopher Markus and
Stephen McFeely turned to TW for input, then rewrote Thor’s character and his
storyline. With this I think we can all make an educated guess as to how
that “worst brother” line came about.)

“Loki just wanted the
throne for himself, he didn’t care for the well being of Asgard.” <- First
of all I strongly suggest you watch the first Thor film again. Anyway, here are
a few quotes from Loki:

“That was just a bit
of fun, really. To ruin my brother’s big day, and to protect the realm from his idiotic rule for a while longer.”

“I love Thor more
dearly than any of you, but you know what he is. He’s arrogant, he’s reckless,
he’s dangerous! You saw how he was today. Is that what Asgard needs from its
King?”

“I never wanted the
throne, I only ever wanted to be your equal!”

“Then New York happen,
Loki has been tortured yeah but he doesn’t mind killing hundred of people that
he knows his brother is protecting, he actually enjoy that and he stab Thor at
the end.”<- I think you should rewatch the first Avengers film
too. Anyway here’s a screencap for your reference:

image

“Loki help Thor in the
dark world but for his own revenge over his mother’s death and then, he still
pretend to be dead so he can have the throne for himself, not caring as his
brother, once again, cry over his death. The only good thing he does is saving
Jane.” <- Some more quotes:

Tom: Loki’s death on Svartalfheim was written as
a death, and Chris and I played that scene for real. That was meant to be sort
of that he redeemed himself. He helped save his brother and helped save Jane
Foster, but he, in the process, sacrificed himself.

Feige: He is able to spin events, without ever
really lying to his brother, without ever actually betraying his brother, into
what is always wanted, which is sitting on the throne and saving his brother. That
last scene needed to work for people watching the movie for the first time, who
believed that it’s Odin talking to Thor, and then the surprise, but it also
needs to work a second and third time. Why is Odin saying those things? Why is
Loki saying those things to Thor? They’re very nice things, they’re very caring
things that he says to him. Is it partly because he loves his brother? I like
to think so. Is it also because that’s what his brother needs… to leave?
Perhaps.

Thor to Loki (Thor: Ragnarok novel): “In the past I demanded the throne when I hadn’t earned it, and then
refused the throne when Asgard needed me most.”

“Thor ragnarok show us
more of their wonderful relationship as children, funny but a little fucked up
on loki’s part.”<- I have ranted so much about Gagnarok by now it makes
me want to gag. In short Loki was ridiculously OOC and Thor wasn’t even Thor in
that film.

“So yeah, Loki is the
worst brother and anyone would have given up on him a long time ago but Thor is
just that good.”<- You know how Thor said something like “I’m only alive
because Fate wants me alive”? I disagree.

He’s only alive because his “worst brother” gave up the
Tesseract to save his thick head from getting crushed by Thanos and that’s a fact.

I don’t endorse the “Gagnarok” label – it’s entirely too easy for people to make fun of it and dismiss serious criticisms on account of a punny insulting nickname – but everything @rewritefate, @lucianalight, and @yume-no-fantasy say in the way of analysis of character and events is exactly right. Kudos to you guys for patiently going through yet another interpretation-challenged person’s regurgitated Ragnarok-dictated talking points.

And here’s this person, like so many other supposed Loki fans, saying “I love Loki, I really do, but” and then detailing how he’s a completely morally bankrupt, power-hungry, sadistic narcissist with no good reasons for doing anything he did. What, exactly, do they love? You can definitely “love” villains who have no redeeming personal qualities – in a way, I kind of “love” General Hux because he’s hilarious, and I definitely love his bizarre perpetual pissing contest of a relationship with Kylo Ren (yes, Kylux is my crack ship) – but not in anything like the way I love Loki. Loki was built from the first Thor movie as a character with depth, with complicated not-entirely-selfish motives, with severe distortions in his worldview but always with reasons you can comprehend and, on some level, sympathize with even when you strongly condemn his actions.

The fact that people are spouting claims about Loki’s motivations in previous film that contradict what you see onscreen but jibe with the claims about Loki that Ragnarok shoves down our throats indicates that it was entirely too successful in writing over the history of these characters and flattening everything into a simple black and white Thor=good and Loki=bad equation. And people are all too ready to accept that. I’d like to think it’s only the people who saw Ragnarok first and only later watched the other movies through its distorted lens, but I suspect some of the people gleefully latching onto this interpretation also claimed to have been fans of the previous movies even before Ragnarok came out. And the fact that they’re saying “Loki has always considered himself superior to Thor and I’m not sure he ever stopped” indicates that even the scene that never made it into Ragnarok, with Loki as an emo-goth Draco Malfoy-esque bully and Thor as the chubby bullied kid, has taken precedence in the minds of much of the fandom over things that actually were in canon, such as Thor reminding Loki of “his place” and Loki’s angry, impassioned confession – obviously not a calculated lie, if you just fucking watch the movie – “I only ever wanted to be your equal.”

It shouldn’t matter that casual MCU fans now worship at the shrine of Ragnarok and piss all over the previous characterizations of the main characters. But most of the people who consider themselves part of the Thor, Loki, Thor-and-Loki, and Thorki fandoms think this way, too. It makes me so sad and angry. Most of the people who claim to love the same characters I do really don’t; they love (or “love”) very different characters and then tell me I’m wrong for respecting the versions that were established first. I wish it were possible to build a wall between the people who still love Thor and Loki and the people who have allowed Thor* and Loki* (their Ragnarok versions) to be painted over them. They really should be two separate fandoms.

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

lucianalight:

I got this ask in response to this post.

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

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

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

What is torture?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

darklittlestories:

philosopherking1887:

foundlingmother:

*deep breath* 

The second most irritating thing a person can say in regards to Loki is that that he faked his sacrifice in TDW. Bonus points if they’re a fan of Ragnarok, which goes out of its way to point out how Loki’s illusions are not solid. THEY ARE NOT SOLID. They become distorted when touched. So how the fuck did Loki fake being stabbed? And when he nearly got sucked into a black hole grenade saving Jane, was that part of his master plan to take the throne of Asgard, too? What about offering said throne to Thor? Ugh! 

The most irritating thing a person can say in regards to Loki is that he faked his death/suicide in Thor. I have no words for these people. They render me speechless.

#there are some opinions i cannot stand#because they make no sense#and create a divide between good and evil loki#when really there isn’t one#loki is always just loki#he can have sacrificed himself for thor and taken advantage when death didn’t stick#because that’s who loki is#simultaneously loving and devoted and cunning and opportunist#and again i have no words for those who think falling into the void was faking death#just no (original tags)

Logic? Consistency? Attention to the content of previous canon? What are those?

Moral complexity? A person who loves the hero but doesn’t always do exactly what he wants? What is that?

I’ve been told that there were people who claimed even before Ragnarok came out that Loki threw himself into the black hole at the end of Thor to escape being held accountable for his actions. If there are such people, I suspect that they started advocating this view as part of the backlash against the “Loki apologists,” so called, of “Loki’s Resistance,” who at the extreme end claim that Loki does not deserve blame for anything he has done, and instead lay all the blame on Odin’s terrible parenting, Thor’s bullying and alleged abuse, and Thanos’s brainwashing and/or full-on mind control. The reaction of Thor’s defenders has been to insist that Loki deserves unmitigated blame for everything and to undercut anything that appears to make Loki deserve our sympathy – including his suicide attempt. You might *think* Loki suffers from severe mental illness and profound self-loathing, but no: he was planning genocide even before he learned that he was Jotun (I have seen people claim this), and what looks like a suicide attempt was just slithering out of punishment.

Ragnarok has exacerbated and given canon legitimization to this tendency by trivializing the issues of Loki’s heritage and his attempted suicide. At a party on Sakaar, Loki tells a story that ends with him hanging over a rift in space, and “at that moment I let go.” Everyone laughs, including him. People have offered all kinds of explanations for why this isn’t as unbelievably insensitive as it seems: we all make light of our trauma to keep it from overwhelming us, of course Loki would do the same; or maybe he’s gone through a course of therapy through theater and has recovered from all his issues and moved on. But the other obvious explanation for why Loki might be laughing about letting himself fall is that it was never a suicide attempt; it was just him being his incorrigible trickster self, cleverly faking his death to get away with mass murder.

I’m confused about a non-criticism/analysis detail, as it impacts continuity for fanfiction.

Where in Ragnarok does it depict his illusions as unsolid & weren’t they already depicted as dissolving when touched? (I am a fan so I’m extra confused—lol)

I thought we saw this in Thor (2011), and definitely did in Avengers and with Frigga’s early in TDW.

You’re a fan of “Ragnarok”? Then you must have noticed that it thematizes the non-solidity of the illusions: on 3 occasions, Thor throws things at Loki to determine whether it’s really him or just an illusion. When it’s an illusion, the pebbles he throws cause glitches in the illusion and go through.

This actually differs from the way the non-solidity had been shown in “The Avengers” and TDW, in which the illusions dissolve on contact. It was slightly different in “Thor”: when Loki uses an illusion to trick a Frost Giant into running off a cliff, the giant runs through his projection, but the projection stays there until Loki dismisses it with a hand gesture.

The point was not that “Ragnarok” revises canon on illusion solidity; on the contrary, it’s surprising that it agrees with previous canon on that point, considering that it’s pushing the narrative that everything about Loki’s apparent death in TDW was faked and he deserves no credit for getting himself impaled to save Thor and avenge Frigga. But how could he have faked it? Considering that Ragnarok itself affirms that Loki’s illusions aren’t solid, wouldn’t Kurse have noticed that Loki’s body provided no resistance to the blade?

foundlingmother:

*deep breath* 

The second most irritating thing a person can say in regards to Loki is that that he faked his sacrifice in TDW. Bonus points if they’re a fan of Ragnarok, which goes out of its way to point out how Loki’s illusions are not solid. THEY ARE NOT SOLID. They become distorted when touched. So how the fuck did Loki fake being stabbed? And when he nearly got sucked into a black hole grenade saving Jane, was that part of his master plan to take the throne of Asgard, too? What about offering said throne to Thor? Ugh! 

The most irritating thing a person can say in regards to Loki is that he faked his death/suicide in Thor. I have no words for these people. They render me speechless.

#there are some opinions i cannot stand#because they make no sense#and create a divide between good and evil loki#when really there isn’t one#loki is always just loki#he can have sacrificed himself for thor and taken advantage when death didn’t stick#because that’s who loki is#simultaneously loving and devoted and cunning and opportunist#and again i have no words for those who think falling into the void was faking death#just no (original tags)

Logic? Consistency? Attention to the content of previous canon? What are those?

Moral complexity? A person who loves the hero but doesn’t always do exactly what he wants? What is that?

I’ve been told that there were people who claimed even before Ragnarok came out that Loki threw himself into the black hole at the end of Thor to escape being held accountable for his actions. If there are such people, I suspect that they started advocating this view as part of the backlash against the “Loki apologists,” so called, of “Loki’s Resistance,” who at the extreme end claim that Loki does not deserve blame for anything he has done, and instead lay all the blame on Odin’s terrible parenting, Thor’s bullying and alleged abuse, and Thanos’s brainwashing and/or full-on mind control. The reaction of Thor’s defenders has been to insist that Loki deserves unmitigated blame for everything and to undercut anything that appears to make Loki deserve our sympathy – including his suicide attempt. You might *think* Loki suffers from severe mental illness and profound self-loathing, but no: he was planning genocide even before he learned that he was Jotun (I have seen people claim this), and what looks like a suicide attempt was just slithering out of punishment.

Ragnarok has exacerbated and given canon legitimization to this tendency by trivializing the issues of Loki’s heritage and his attempted suicide. At a party on Sakaar, Loki tells a story that ends with him hanging over a rift in space, and “at that moment I let go.” Everyone laughs, including him. People have offered all kinds of explanations for why this isn’t as unbelievably insensitive as it seems: we all make light of our trauma to keep it from overwhelming us, of course Loki would do the same; or maybe he’s gone through a course of therapy through theater and has recovered from all his issues and moved on. But the other obvious explanation for why Loki might be laughing about letting himself fall is that it was never a suicide attempt; it was just him being his incorrigible trickster self, cleverly faking his death to get away with mass murder.

mentallydatingahotcelebrity:

just-another-millenial97:

I usually say very little when it comes to things like this, but come on, Hemsworth! This is so unprofessional. He literally calls it “meh”

I’m just so mindblown that he would do that. Like I can have respect for him not caring for it. Every actor probably has a piece of work that they regret, but to go out and trash it. Why is that necessary??

Hiddleston doesn’t trash Ragnorak despite having every reason to.

Hemsworth has to right to speak down about this film

He almost sounds like he has no idea what he’s talking about. I would take TDW over Ragnarok any day. In my personal opinion the worst movie is Ragnarok, because it’s essentially just him wandering around a set in a costume being him. At least before it felt like a movie instead of some weird skit that just felt fake and plastic and… bad. I honestly can’t believe that the cinematic industry is devolving this much to call Ragnarok good moviemaking and TDW bad moviemaking. 

I’ve seen bad movies. I actually just watched three of them on netflix today, and TDW in no way compares to them. This is just sad, the only reason he’s saying TDW is bad is because that’s what other people are saying, and the only reason he’s saying Ragnarok is good is because that’s what the majority is screaming. If it was the other way, his tune would be sounding way different.

He’s just really, really lucky people seem to now have no concept of what makes good movies and what makes bad movies.

I think the reason he’s saying TDW was bad is because he was “bored” of actually trying to act in dramatic roles instead of just dicking around in expensive costumes on expensive sets with expensive visual effects to distract from his non-acting.

And TDW may have been a classic archetype of masculinity, but I’ll definitely take that over the frat boy pseudo-humor we get from every Seth MacFarlane movie and “Thor: Ragnarok.” It was not progressive. It was not deflating the guy who’s trying to act cool, the way everyone who says it’s a distinctively Maori kind of humor claims it is – unless the “guy trying to act cool” is Loki, because it definitely put *him* in his place. Thor took a couple of pratfalls, but otherwise succeeded at everything he did, or if he didn’t it was always someone else’s fault. So Thor came out looking fine… unless we were actually *supposed* to perceive his behavior as deeply unpleasant, which I very much doubt. I thought the point of this (purported) Maori style of humor was to make your “cool” hero look foolish or incompetent, not like a narcissistic bully.

philosopherking1887:

eliannaeldari replied to your post “How can you come from a monotheistic family and have a deep…”

(1/7) Um, no, we never ever ever believed in the validity of multiple Gods as an aspect of our religion, though paganism was definitely a problem for us in biblical times. There are multiple stories of god breaking idols, etc, but that’s intended to demonstrate that they were just “ivory and wood, silver and marble”, “eyes that do not see, lips that do not speak, and ears that do not hear”. This whole thing is seriously misguided, I’m sorry. Taika seems to have followed

(2/7) A charachterization closer to that described in the eddas than in the comics, but that’s probably due to him just going ahead and reading the eddas. They aren’t all that hard to get a hold of. 

(3/7) I know very little about Islam, but while in Judaism god is described as jealous, it’s never “of other Gods”, it’s more like possessive. According to Judaism, there are no other Gods, and large factions of Judaism don’t believe in any non-god supernatural forces whatsoever. Christianity is mostly only considered monothiest by Christians, and while some Jewish sages say that it is, plenty say that it’s polythiesm, especially Catholicism and any involving the Trinity or

(4/7) Saints. We aren’t even allowed to pray in a church- aren’t even really supposed to go in them, though many people are lax about that. Mosques, on the other hand, we’re allowed to pray in- though are not supposed to take part in Muslim services. We have hymns and descriptions and poetry and legal writings from before Jesus was even a glimmer in his parents’ eyes about the oneness, unity, and lone existence of god. That doesn’t mean that Jews back then followed the

(5/7) Mitzvot/rules any more than they/,we do now, but that’s entirely different than claiming that *as a matter if religion* we acknowledged foreign Gods.

(6/7) We say, three times a day, (plus it’s supposed to be the last thing we say before we die) “hear Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one”. 

(7/7) God absolutely doesn’t want us wasting our time and efforts worshipping God’s that don’t exist, instead of following his commandments. That’s made pretty damn clear. Now, to be honest, *I believe in a “clockmaker” god, and am no longer orthodox*. But I couldn’t let this lie, as it’s very misinformed and misleading. I assume that OP simply didn’t have as much information, and was writing in good faith, but that doesn’t mean that the analysis is based in fact. 

OK, first of all, @eliannaeldari – I am Jewish. Not religiously, anymore, but by heritage and upbringing. But I grew up Reform Jewish, in a family and a congregation that respected secular academic scholarship… and of course I’m in academia now, studying a period in history when secular Biblical scholarship and history was a relatively new thing that was (along with Darwin) contributing to Europe’s religious crisis.

My information – coming from the cantor at the synagogue where I grew up, as well as from interacting with scholars of Jewish history in religious studies departments – is that very early Judaism embraced monolatry, the worship of only one god, rather than monotheism, the belief in the existence of only one god. I was under the impression that that was the scholarly consensus. The Jewish Virtual Library concurs; the Wikipedia article on monolatry cites a number of scholars who defend this thesis; My Jewish Learning, a site for prospective converts, teaches the controversy (so to speak), but only cites two scholars who hold that Judaism was monotheistic from the beginning.

So no, I was not claiming that we ever “believed in the validity of multiple Gods as an aspect of our religion.” It is not clear whether by validity you meant “actual existence” or “worth and acceptable worship.” The concept of monolatry indicates that there is an important distinction. The idea is that while there are other gods, they are other people’s gods, not ours. It’s fine if those other people worship them; we are not allowed to.

Some poking around suggests that I was mistaken about the timing of the shift from monolatry to monotheism, so thanks for questioning me on that. The various sources I’ve come across all seem to put the date around the time of the Babylonian exile, so 6th century BCE (here’s another one that’s clearly written). Deuteronomy, in which the text of the Sh’ma is found, was mostly composed in the 7th century BCE, and partly during the exile. There’s some speculation that monotheism developed as a response by the educated elite to the cataclysm of exile, and some that Persian Zoroastrianism may have been a relevant influence.

It must have been a trend: Greek religion was also showing monotheistic drift by the time of Plato and Socrates (5th century BCE); many gods were still officially recognized, but Zeus was definitely expanding in importance and starting to take on those omni- characteristics that predominate in philosophical monotheism. I was aware that Greek philosophy influenced the early development of Christian theology, and I had thought that was where principled monotheism had come from; it looks like monotheism was an earlier development, and it was more philosophical theology – issues like the problem of evil, which may or may not have originated with Epicurus – that came from the Greeks. And that might have entered Judaism directly, without being mediated by Christianity.

I don’t want to get into the issue of whether Christianity is “really” monotheistic with the trinity and the saints and all that. Syncretism, appealing to local pagans, whatever. The moral landscape of Christianity is distinctively monotheistic: there is one source of goodness and power, and any conflicting forces are (a) evil and (b) ultimately subordinate. The pagan worldview recognizes multiple competing forces, and while different groups of people may have different divine allegiances, it’s not really a matter of “good” vs. “evil.” The Trojan War as related in the Iliad is a case in point: different gods took different sides, and the Trojans were still regarded as noble and heroic, even though the perspective was Greek. One thing Judaism has in common with various pagan religions (and some but not all forms of Zoroastrianism, apparently) but not with Christianity and Islam is the absence of proselytism. It is kind of unusual for a monotheistic religion to be tribal rather than universalistic… but I guess since Judaism doesn’t really have a concept of “salvation” it might not matter that much.

Addendum: I also don’t give a crap about whether Taika gave a more accurate representation of the Norse gods. That wasn’t, as I understood it, the goal of the MCU Thor movies. I doubt very much that he’s read the Eddas but the writers of “Thor 1” and “The Avengers” hadn’t. (Markus & McFeely are another story.) If that’s what he was aiming for, he did the wrong assignment. But I also doubt very much that he had any such aim in mind.