Also, on a separate note, I know you’re not a fan of Ragnarok, but do these feelings extend towards Valkyrie? I was wondering where the heck she was and if you had any theories

Answering your previous question(s) will involve digging up some old posts where I’ve addressed/ranted about what I think was going on with Loki’s death in Infinity War, so I’ll deal with that tomorrow (I hope). This one’s a little more straightforward.

To set the record straight: disliking Ragnarok on the whole does not mean that I dislike every single thing about it; it’s just that I don’t feel like I need to add a disclaimer specifying what I didn’t hate every time I want to make an argument regarding what I thought was bad. I do like Valkyrie (or Brunnhilde, rather, since that’s her name). The things I like about her are probably the usual things that are cited when people talk about how awesome she was: a woman of color was allowed to inhabit an archetype that’s usually reserved for men; she wasn’t over-sexualized; the possibility of romance with Thor was allowed to remain a mere suggestion. She’s a morally flawed badass, which is great.

However, I do have some issues with the way her story was handled. The film seemed remarkably blasé about the time she spent as a slave-trader, in much the way that it (and Bruce!) was inappropriately blasé about the fact that the Hulk had spent the last 2 years killing gladiator slaves for sport. And also the fact that she nonchalantly pulverized some of her fellow scrappers… I mean, I guess they were about to kill Thor, but that was a lot of casual death that never got put on her moral tab. To reiterate, I like the fact that she’s morally flawed; I like heroes who are morally flawed. But it also needs to be acknowledged. As a Loki fan in the first instance, I’m tired of people insisting at me that I need to acknowledge all the terrible things Loki has done before I’m allowed to like him, while out of the other side of their mouths telling me that I should stop insisting that Thor fans acknowledge his moral failings. There is a clear double standard, in fandom as in the films themselves, between the characters who are designated “heroes” and those who are designated “villains”: once you’ve played the villain role, you can sacrifice yourself to save the universe but still never live down your crimes; but if you’ve been put in the hero role, your crimes are automatically expunged, even if they’re comparable in extent to the so-called villain’s. (Well, except that the Team Cap people are constantly going on about Tony’s crimes… but that’s because they’ve cast him as a villain.)

I’m also not thrilled that Valkyrie has been presented both by Marvel and by the fandom as a “replacement” for Jane Foster – nay, as an upgrade, who’s “more equal” to Thor (per Kevin Feige) and also better in social justice terms because she’s not white (according to Tumblr). That, however, is not a mark against Valkyrie as a character. I just don’t like the way she’s been implicitly or explicitly opposed to Jane, as if you’re only allowed to like one. They have different strengths; Jane’s strength is her intellect, and as a 5′1″ academic who most certainly cannot beat people up, that appeals to me. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with Thor being attracted to a woman for her intelligence and creativity rather than her warrior’s prowess. I wish the two characters had been allowed to coexist. With Jane and Darcy unceremoniously booted, I’m pretty sure Ragnarok, unlike the previous two Thor films, does not pass the Bechdel test.

As to where Brunnhilde is now… I think IW didn’t address it because the writers didn’t totally know what was going on with Ragnarok and also were lazy/didn’t care. My headcanon is that Thor ordered her to lead the Asgardian civilians who couldn’t fight due to age or disability onto whatever lifeboats/escape pods were on the Ark and then protect them wherever they ended up.

foundlingmother replied to your post “foundlingmother: philosopherking1887: iamanartichoke: Friendly…”

@philosopherking1887 Well, I do say “participated in”, and that’s supposed to point to Thor’s actions on Jotunheim. That’s a much bigger part for me than the fact that Thor’s enriched by all the stolen gold. It’s those actions I want acknowledged more than anything. I don’t think it’s good to wallow in the crimes of the past, but I think it’s good to acknowledge them, which people aggressively avoid doing, insisting they possess no privilege.

In fact, I’m kind of confused why you got what you did from my post… do you mind telling me? I think I’m pretty clear about being critical of the cover up of past crimes, and never say anything about redistribution or the personal responsibility of those who benefit beyond the fact that we should be critical of those who think uncritically and deny that history did bias the results in a certain direction.

That doesn’t assume that we must forever lash ourselves to these crimes we are unwittingly the benefactors of, or set things right by giving away the shirts on our backs, only that the first step towards any sort of compensation, forward-thinking or otherwise, must be acknowledgement of the crimes of our ancestors.

I suppose my actual opinion, summarized, is that white people alive today need to accept responsibility, not admit guilt, for the crimes of our ancestors and work towards a better future not by undoing the crime (as you say, this is impossible), but through that forward-thinking compensation. So I’m not sure we disagree in principle, though our particular ideas of what forward-thinking compensation looks like might differ.

I thought I should get this discussion off poor @iamanartichoke‘s post because it was getting pretty long (sorry for spamming!). And it’s about to get longer.

@foundlingmother there were a couple things in your original comment that made me think you were ascribing guilt to the descendants of conquerors simply in virtue of their descent and inheritance, not in virtue of their refusal to acknowledge it or attempt to make amends. First: “I don’t think Thor’s at Hela or Odin’s level whatsoever, but he’s the crown prince of an imperial power. He did benefit from and participate (unknowingly) in this imperialism.” When you said “participate (unknowingly),” it wasn’t clear that you meant Thor’s invasion of Jotunheim. That could certainly be construed as unknowing participation if he didn’t think of ‘keeping the Jotuns down’ (to paraphrase Randy Newman) as a perpetuation of oppression, but just a strategic necessity, given their (presumed) warlike nature. The “unknowingly” made me think you were talking about just the wealth and power he inherited, rather than something he did knowingly and voluntarily… but given your clarification, I can see that it could mean something he did without knowing that it fell under a certain description. (Sorry if that came out jargony; I may have lost the ability to think in non-philosophers’ terms.)

The other thing that pointed me toward that reading was this: “Black Panther avoids insulting white viewers to the extent it would be appropriate to do so. … The wrongdoings of white people exist on the periphery, but they are not the focus. If Ragnarok’s critique weren’t so muddled, it would have been a critique of white imperialists. It would have been a condemnation of erasing history and the uncritical thinking that allows people who benefit to rationalize their relative good fortune.” It seemed that you were collapsing the categories of “imperialist” and “descendant who benefits.” Of course, the distinction isn’t all that clean when imperialism survives in the form of globalized capitalism… but there are white people in the global north whose primary fault is ignorance of the conditions that allow them to enjoy their cheap consumer goods, and who may or may not be in a position to do anything about it directly, so it doesn’t quite seem accurate to call them “imperialists.” As to Black Panther, I think it was pretty clear about the wrongdoings of white people: they are the necessary background condition of the dilemma that T’Challa and Wakanda find themselves in. The issue of what white people should do to correct the harms of past imperialism and continuing neo-imperialism is incredibly complicated, and it wasn’t the what-if question that Black Panther was interested in exploring as a piece of speculative fiction.

Perhaps I was being uncharitable in my reading of your comment… I do come into the issue with some annoyance at a certain strain of rhetoric on the Left that dwells ad nauseam on white guilt. They often make it sound as if they think white people are inherently morally worse than people of color – which is a particular instance of the general principle that members of oppressed groups are inherently morally better than members of privileged groups, but one that appears to trump all other instances of the principle. There often seems to be a mythic narrative at play in the background according to which oppression was invented by white people (i.e., Europeans) in the 15th century, and before that everything was hunky dory. There also seems to be the implicit assumption that the reason non-white people didn’t end up conquering the rest of the world was out of some sort of morally virtuous restraint… which ignores the amount of brutal conquering that did go on in every part of the world long before the modern era. So I can see why some white people end up feeling like the Left is blaming them for being alive, and why they end up feeling defensive. That isn’t enough to put me off my commitment to realizing racial equality, and it doesn’t justify the defensive white people in ceasing to be allies, but I can also see where it’s coming from. But of course that’s just my “white fragility,” isn’t it…? Oy.

Oh, and then there were the white people on Facebook saying they thought Killmonger was right. And I’m like… so you’re saying you’re in favor of arming all the non-white people with incredibly advanced weapons and just letting them have at it? Don’t get me wrong, I think they have some very real grievances against white people in general. But I also don’t believe in the inherent goodness of the oppressed, and I don’t believe that arming them indiscriminately would result in the overthrow of all unjust systems, the institution of just ones, and the punishment of those responsible for oppression in proportion to their level of responsibility. Also, most of the time I don’t want to die violently, and I suspect my white friends on Facebook don’t either, so I’m pretty sure all the “Killmonger was right” stuff was just social justice posturing/point-scoring. And no, my saying that doesn’t mean that I think brown people are evil and violent; it means I think they’re people (which goes to your point, @musclesandhammering). Arming oppressed white people doesn’t usually end well, either; look at the French Revolution. Achieving justice needs to involve cooperation between the (erstwhile) oppressors and oppressed, with the latter presenting their grievances and the former voluntarily divesting themselves of their undue advantages, not just turning over all power to the injured party and letting them wreak revenge.

… and now I’m gonna get a bunch of hate and “No wonder you didn’t like Ragnarok, you’re a racist colonizer.” Oh well.

foundlingmother:

philosopherking1887:

iamanartichoke:

Friendly reminder that Loki never showed any general ill-will toward Asgard or intent to destroy Asgard and that usurping Odin at the end of TDW didn’t necessarily have to bode ill for Asgard’s fate, as we had no reason to believe he would rule poorly. That Ragnarok revealed his “evil plan” being community theatre shouldn’t be much of a surprise – by which, I mean I didn’t expect the community theatre part, but I didn’t expect to see Asgard in tyrannical ruins under Loki’s rule, either. Loki has always proven himself sensible, analytical, and highly intelligent. He would have absolutely nothing to gain by using Odin’s form to run Asgard into the ground. Despite what Thor says about the Nine Realms being in chaos, I’m pretty sure things were fine and were always going to be fine under Loki.

#loki #loki as odin #the dark world #thor ragnarok #sorry but i just get tired of seeing posts about #how everyone was worried after Loki was revealed as Odin #at the end of tdw #like it meant asgard was doomed #why would anyone think that?#ragnarok didn’t do us some huge favor #of painting loki as a benevolent ruler #to everyone’s surprise #it did however #make him look very narcissistic with that play #which i’ve always been uncomfortable with #but i just pretend it doesn’t exist #and i manage okay

And the other thing is… that line about the Nine Realms being in chaos – which has encouraged everyone to trash Loki as a terrible king and paint his usurping Odin as another horrific crime for which he deserved any maltreatment Thor subsequently decided to inflict on him – is an example of just how half-assed Ragnarok’s “critique of imperialism” really is (as @foundlingmother and I have discussed at length). So conquest is bad, but non-interventionism is equally bad? Sudden withdrawal from protectorates that have been left in no condition to protect or govern themselves is certainly not great, but it’s a complicated issue exactly what kind of aid or training withdrawing conquerors should provide. (Is it “weaning” away from dependency, or just extending the period of dependency? Doesn’t “teaching” self-governance involve a kind of cultural imperialism, as the conqueror generally ends up teaching the ex-protectorate how to imitate its own system of government?) It’s understandable that a comic book action movie isn’t going to explore those kinds of issues in depth (and boy, did Civil War massively fail on that score – though Black Panther did a pretty good job wrestling with it), but… if you’re going to bring it up in the form of a ham-handed allegory, you can’t also have this glaring (at least apparent) inconsistency and not address it.

This appears to be another example of the film dropping the ball on its otherwise worthy anti-imperialism message when it comes to Loki – probably deliberately, considering the lack of sympathy and respect the film and its creator show for Loki in just about every other context. As I’ve also discussed at length, Ragnarok missed, or simply passed on, an obvious opportunity to address Loki’s place in Asgard’s imperialist history, as the child of a conquered people raised in ignorance of his heritage and with such contempt and hatred toward his own kind that when he discovered he was one of them he tried to wipe them out. I’m going to excerpt the most relevant part of that old post:

Loki’s story could have been used to flesh out the narrative about colonialism. Recall Hela’s dismissive remark about bogus “peace treaties” commemorated on the redecorated walls of the throne room: that might have been an allusion to the one-sided “treaties” that Britain and the U.S. signed with American Indian nations and then trampled all over. Loki could have been one of those stolen indigenous children raised among the colonists and taught to scorn the people to whom he was born. But for some reason Waititi and the writers didn’t make the connection, or didn’t want to tie Loki in to that aspect of the story. … maybe it was just because Loki has been a villain and they didn’t want to draw a connection between a (part-time) villain – or anyway, a character they just don’t like – and the oppressed of colonialism (though making him queer is OK, I guess). For whatever reason, they wanted to keep Loki firmly coded as White (which makes him easier to ridicule!) and gloss over the part where he’s only white-passing (literally; he’s actually blue).

And I’m not the only one; @endiness put it nicely:

the movie features asgard’s ‘past’ history of imperialism and colonization as a major plot point… but then it excludes loki from the narrative when he easily has a place in it. like, how could he not when he’s the adopted (kidnapped) son of the leader of an enemy nation left in ruin after losing to asgard? and when odin literally admitted that he took loki for political purposes? but, again, nothing about any of this at all. (actually, even worse than loki and his heritage and the circumstances being entirely excluded from the story, it isn’t; it’s brought up but only in the context of humor explicitly at loki’s expense to make a mockery of the emotional complexity and depth of his character in the previous movies.)

So the upshot seems to be: hammer in your anti-imperialist message except when Loki might appear to be on the oppressed rather than oppressor’s end of the equation, when the issue threatens to give him more depth and complexity and make him remotely sympathetic. Condemn Hela and Odin (but only sometimes; Thor can still appeal to him for strength at the end) for being imperialists, but condemn Loki for failing to be imperialist enough.

I’d add that they deny Thor having a role in this at all. So, hammer in your anti-imperialist message except when Thor might appear to be on the oppressor’s end of the equation. Let me be clear: I don’t think Thor’s at Hela or Odin’s level whatsoever, but he’s the crown prince of an imperial power. He did benefit from and participate (unknowingly) in this imperialism. And that isn’t explored. It’s sort of like Thor and Loki exist in an entirely different Asgard than the one Hela did, rather than an Asgard that’s still defined by its history. Very frustrating how muddled the critique becomes when it could have been so, so strong and interesting. Better even, in some ways, than Black Panther’s, because Black Panther avoids insulting white viewers to the extent it would be appropriate to do so. The discussion focuses on how Wakanda, a country that avoided colonization, should respond to the plight of their fellow Africans and people of African descent. The wrongdoings of white people exist on the periphery, but they are not the focus. If Ragnarok’s critique weren’t so muddled, it would have been a critique of white imperialists. It would have been a condemnation of erasing history and the uncritical thinking that allows people who benefit to rationalize their relative good fortune. There’s such a strong critique somewhere in this movie that reminds me a lot of the critiques I’ve read by Native Americans and other indigenous peoples (no surprise given Taika Waititi’s Māori), but I guess other elements of the movie were prioritized. Like making Thor a flat, quippy badass, rather than a growthful, ultimately altruistic badass.

Yeah, I dunno… if they wanted to talk about how Odin’s imperialist attitudes are the reason Thor rushed into Jotunheim with guns blazing, that would have been great – but that would involve talking about the Frost Giants as victims of imperialism (or, you know, talking about them at all), which might threaten to make Loki more sympathetic. And it would also involve acknowledging actual bad things that Thor himself (as opposed to his relatives) had done, which is not the Ragnarok way.

If it’s just about the fact that Thor benefited from the spoils of empire, I think that was made reasonably clear, and I’m not sure how it would help to see him doing a whole lot of breast-beating about it. The Nietzsche quote I just posted might indicate that you and I have different attitudes about how to regard past injustices, and possibly about the default moral status of descendants of the conquerors vs. the conquered. Or to put it differently: the crimes of the past can never be undone; the best approach is not to try to make things the way you think they would have been if they had never been committed (since you have no idea what that would look like anyway), but to approach compensation in a forward-looking manner that avoids perpetrating further injustices.

van-dyne:

the fact that people only see Jane’s (potential) return will ‘ruin’ Thor’s character is hilarious and offending at the same time. Girl is an astrophysicist, girl is an expert in quantum physics and space, girl had been a host for an infinity stone and survived. She has knowledge and experience to bring to the table, she is HER OWN CHARACTER and she is NOT defined by Thor or anyone. You all fake feminists praising Thor for being a feminist, for supporting women, and then you turn around and reduce Jane Foster, the world’s foremost astronomer, to Thor’s ex who will ruin his character. I see you there.

I’m also not sure where all this “Thor is a feminist” stuff came from other than that really weird rambly bit in Ragnarok, which did not strike me as remotely genuine. Like, it’s cool if you all headcanon that he’s a big feminist, and since I like him as a character pre-Ragnarok I’d like to think he is (except for that attempt to take credit for Sif’s success when she was introduced in Thor 1), but I regard that trope the same way I do the thing about Thor being obsessed with Pop-Tarts: a throwaway bit of canon that fanon blew out of proportion.

iamanartichoke:

Friendly reminder that Loki never showed any general ill-will toward Asgard or intent to destroy Asgard and that usurping Odin at the end of TDW didn’t necessarily have to bode ill for Asgard’s fate, as we had no reason to believe he would rule poorly. That Ragnarok revealed his “evil plan” being community theatre shouldn’t be much of a surprise – by which, I mean I didn’t expect the community theatre part, but I didn’t expect to see Asgard in tyrannical ruins under Loki’s rule, either. Loki has always proven himself sensible, analytical, and highly intelligent. He would have absolutely nothing to gain by using Odin’s form to run Asgard into the ground. Despite what Thor says about the Nine Realms being in chaos, I’m pretty sure things were fine and were always going to be fine under Loki.

#loki #loki as odin #the dark world #thor ragnarok #sorry but i just get tired of seeing posts about #how everyone was worried after Loki was revealed as Odin #at the end of tdw #like it meant asgard was doomed #why would anyone think that?#ragnarok didn’t do us some huge favor #of painting loki as a benevolent ruler #to everyone’s surprise #it did however #make him look very narcissistic with that play #which i’ve always been uncomfortable with #but i just pretend it doesn’t exist #and i manage okay

And the other thing is… that line about the Nine Realms being in chaos – which has encouraged everyone to trash Loki as a terrible king and paint his usurping Odin as another horrific crime for which he deserved any maltreatment Thor subsequently decided to inflict on him – is an example of just how half-assed Ragnarok’s “critique of imperialism” really is (as @foundlingmother and I have discussed at length). So conquest is bad, but non-interventionism is equally bad? Sudden withdrawal from protectorates that have been left in no condition to protect or govern themselves is certainly not great, but it’s a complicated issue exactly what kind of aid or training withdrawing conquerors should provide. (Is it “weaning” away from dependency, or just extending the period of dependency? Doesn’t “teaching” self-governance involve a kind of cultural imperialism, as the conqueror generally ends up teaching the ex-protectorate how to imitate its own system of government?) It’s understandable that a comic book action movie isn’t going to explore those kinds of issues in depth (and boy, did Civil War massively fail on that score – though Black Panther did a pretty good job wrestling with it), but… if you’re going to bring it up in the form of a ham-handed allegory, you can’t also have this glaring (at least apparent) inconsistency and not address it.

This appears to be another example of the film dropping the ball on its otherwise worthy anti-imperialism message when it comes to Loki – probably deliberately, considering the lack of sympathy and respect the film and its creator show for Loki in just about every other context. As I’ve also discussed at length, Ragnarok missed, or simply passed on, an obvious opportunity to address Loki’s place in Asgard’s imperialist history, as the child of a conquered people raised in ignorance of his heritage and with such contempt and hatred toward his own kind that when he discovered he was one of them he tried to wipe them out. I’m going to excerpt the most relevant part of that old post:

Loki’s story could have been used to flesh out the narrative about colonialism. Recall Hela’s dismissive remark about bogus “peace treaties” commemorated on the redecorated walls of the throne room: that might have been an allusion to the one-sided “treaties” that Britain and the U.S. signed with American Indian nations and then trampled all over. Loki could have been one of those stolen indigenous children raised among the colonists and taught to scorn the people to whom he was born. But for some reason Waititi and the writers didn’t make the connection, or didn’t want to tie Loki in to that aspect of the story. … maybe it was just because Loki has been a villain and they didn’t want to draw a connection between a (part-time) villain – or anyway, a character they just don’t like – and the oppressed of colonialism (though making him queer is OK, I guess). For whatever reason, they wanted to keep Loki firmly coded as White (which makes him easier to ridicule!) and gloss over the part where he’s only white-passing (literally; he’s actually blue).

And I’m not the only one; @endiness put it nicely:

the movie features asgard’s ‘past’ history of imperialism and colonization as a major plot point… but then it excludes loki from the narrative when he easily has a place in it. like, how could he not when he’s the adopted (kidnapped) son of the leader of an enemy nation left in ruin after losing to asgard? and when odin literally admitted that he took loki for political purposes? but, again, nothing about any of this at all. (actually, even worse than loki and his heritage and the circumstances being entirely excluded from the story, it isn’t; it’s brought up but only in the context of humor explicitly at loki’s expense to make a mockery of the emotional complexity and depth of his character in the previous movies.)

So the upshot seems to be: hammer in your anti-imperialist message except when Loki might appear to be on the oppressed rather than oppressor’s end of the equation, when the issue threatens to give him more depth and complexity and make him remotely sympathetic. Condemn Hela and Odin (but only sometimes; Thor can still appeal to him for strength at the end) for being imperialists, but condemn Loki for failing to be imperialist enough.

Newsflash: not all fans of Thor and Loki comics like “Ragnarok” at all, let alone think it was a better representation of the comics characters than the previous movies. Newsflash 2: keeping your continuities straight, including consistent characterization within a run, is a virtue even in comics.

foundlingmother:

Hi new followers! I sometimes write Ragnarok meta. It’s not positive. I try to cultivate an environment on my blog where people can have fun and where people who like Ragnarok are welcome. Hence why I’m writing this. I want you to know I have a tag:

“ragnarok discourse”

You deserve the dashboard that’s right for you. Blacklist if you do not like to see anything negative about Ragnarok, or any Ragnarok discourse in general, and stop reading here.

Ok, let me start by saying that Thor needs to incapacitate Loki when he attempts to betray him in Ragnarok. This isn’t up for debate, imo. Loki is attempting to prevent Thor from returning to Asgard to save a bunch of innocent lives. For me, this is similar to when Thor used Mjolnir to immobilize Loki in Thor. He needed to do that in order to save people.

That specific part isn’t a problem for me. Thor is in the right to incapacitate Loki, who is in the wrong by betraying Thor.

Now, I could go on forever and ever about how I feel Loki’s betrayal doesn’t make a lot of sense. MCU Loki–unlike comics Loki–doesn’t have a habit of betraying Thor for petty or purely self-serving reasons. He does betray Thor, but there’s an understandable reason for it when it happens (understandable does not mean righteous, btw). It’s not something he does for shit and giggles. We know this because we see in Thor that the experience of being betrayed by Loki is foreign. It’s new.

Like I said, forever and ever. However, proving that both characters are OOC in this scene isn’t the point of this post. No, the point is to talk about the obedience disk (I nearly wrote obedience dick XD). I’ve done this before, but… I have to do it again.

Better.

Bigger.

Bolder.

Not actually any of those things. Mostly just not as upset as I was the last time.

I want to talk about the intent of the filmmakers.

I don’t really give a shit about the intent of the filmmakers. I’m one of those death of the author people. Personal interpretations are not based on the notes in the script or the private thoughts or directions of anyone on set. I think it’s important to take a look at, however, to

definitively

prove one point: that my interpretation isn’t crazy. It doesn’t come from nothing.

My opinion: I believe the obedience disk is a disgusting torture device that causes both Thor and Loki immense pain. I feel disgusted and uncomfortable seeing it used on both of them. I can understand the necessity when Thor’s lacking resources and needs to incapacitate Loki, but I find it OOC that Thor leaves Loki defenseless and in serious pain. I don’t think Thor would do that. I don’t even think he’d be gloating. He did gloat when outsmarting Loki in TDW, but the handcuffs didn’t cause Loki the sort of pain the obedience disk does. I do not think Thor could ever be pleased watching his brother writhe in pain, no matter how much of a shit he’s being (and Loki is a shit).

A lot of people, in my experience, think there’s no basis for this interpretation. They’ll say it’s just an inconvenience, it’s not that bad. They’ll wonder why I’m blowing it so out of proportion or what movie I even watched.

And that’s where our receipts come in.

Hold on! Stop!

Can someone please explain to me what the pain of a thousand screaming squirrels is? What is this metric?

……….Let’s move on……….

Again, I don’t think that interpretations of movies need to rely on the notes within a script. We don’t have access to those when consuming the movie. My point is that the intention of the filmmakers was to portray Thor and Loki suffering when the obedience disk is used on them (or when Thor messes with it), and so it’s not an overreaction that I should take it that way, or that I should be disturbed that (the impostor) Thor smugly leaves Loki in a situation where he cannot move enough to free or protect himself.

Big thanks to @loxxxlay and @philosopherking1887 for listening to me rant (thought you guys might like to see organized and measured thoughts), and credit to @incredifishface, who reblogged a meta with a response, which I feel I kind of picked words and phrases and arguments from during this, though it was unintentional. I’m just not good at coming up with my own words.

Thank you for bringing in actual textual evidence. I feel like there isn’t enough of that in this fandom. Or on Tumblr in general. Or, you know, in life.

I always seen so much praise to Taika Watiti’s Thor and I don’t get it. Sure the movie is fun and it a similar tone to the GOTG movies… but that’s the thing we already have those movies so I don’t see the point of doing an imitation of that in the Thor saga. I know the first cpl of Thor’s movies had issues, but I think the tone was actually more adequate, I mean we lost the warriors three in less than a minute and were quickly forgotten.. idk it just irks me

lokihiddleston:

.

And the thing is, the GOTG movies did it better. They manage to strike a balance between humor and pathos. We can still feel pain at Gamora and Nebula’s abuse by Thanos, Peter’s grief for his mother and guilt for not taking her hand when she was dying, his longing for a bond with his father and disillusionment at who his father turned out to be, Yondu’s guilt about the way he treated Peter and desire to make amends even at the cost of his life, Rocket’s hinted-at backstory in torturous scientific experimentation… These things are allowed to coexist with the humor; humor isn’t always used to deflate the emotionally powerful moments (though it is sometimes), but sometimes oddly enhances them (e.g., Rocket drunkenly waving a gun at Drax and then revealing his history; the “playing catch with Dad” moment from GOTG 2; Yondu’s “I’m Mary Poppins, y’all!”). Ragnarok never found that balance; it scarcely allowed pathos to exist at all.

incredifishface:

kingloptr:

toomanylokifeels:

toomanylokifeels:

…why are some people so very upset that thor essentially put a tazer on loki? he literally beat loki at his own game? loki was just about to betray him? a part of loki was pretty impressed that thor tricked him? why do we gotta be like this, y’all?

I’ve read everyone’s explanations as to why and I *kind of* get it, but at the same time here are my reasons for not having any issue at all with this scene:

Loki was just about to abandon Thor, again, while being rewarded for Thor’s capture to “set him up nicely.” Thor had every right to defend himself and every right to be tired of Loki’s games in a very critical moment.

Thor has no reason to protect Loki anymore, because no matter what he does, Loki does not change. This doesn’t mean there aren’t unresolved issues between them. It means Thor can’t be the only one trying anymore.

When you have a family member who is consistently choosing to do terrible things with little consideration for the consequences, sometimes you have to put them in a sink or swim situation to protect yourself.

Otherwise, you’ve exhausted yourself trying to help someone who doesn’t want to be helped and who gets hurt in the end? You do. Asgard is literally falling apart and Loki’s selfishness is a liability.

Thor has changed and matured, but that doesn’t mean he’s got to stick to some ridiculous moral code. He’s never been the hero who wont play dirty when he needs to play dirty and I personally respect that.

Loki almost always plays dirty. Loki is also a very powerful being just like Thor. That being said, he’s good at weaseling out of difficult situations and he can fend for himself. I’m honestly not too worried about a taser of all the things.

Loki is one of my favorite characters, but I love Thor’s complexity as well. He doesn’t set himself at a higher standard than anyone else because he doesn’t care about being better than anyone else.

He cares about the task in front of him. He cares about what needs to be done even if he doesn’t like it, but Thor canonically gets pissed off very easily and he’ll show it. He even shows this side of him to his “hero” friends.

And I like that about him.

Loki not only impeded Thor from helping Asgard, but his actions pissed Thor off. I’m not going to nit-pick or hold any ill feelings towards Thor for being pissed off and acting like it, especially when Loki is given excuse after excuse.

Thor isn’t a better individual because he always acts within a rigid moral code. It’s because he’s doing good things and putting others first even when he’s really pissed off about it.

And, I mean… come on… it’s a taser not a death ray. Loki has actually stabbed Thor multiple times. I think Loki can stand having the wiggles for a while until he can manipulate whoever into saving him.

T̲̠̟͕͖͎̠̑̈̈͋̌ͧ̅H͉̋̆͋̾̄ͫ̄Ạ͎̘͎̙ͬN̳͙̯̰̱͈̋̎K̼̜̭͆̆ ̥̟Y̦̭͛ͩ̒͂̆̒̅O͎͆̈̐ͫ̎Ŭ̪͕͈͉̞ͨ̈́̚̚

my very real problem with this whole scene is that any meta concerning that scene for me rests on a basis made of… nothing, really.

That betrayal IS the bread and butter of the comics, in which the characters have been dancing around each other for like 30 human years of issues and continuities, but it feels extremely wrong in the MCU continuity. That’s NOT where they are in the MCU. Loki does not betray and double-cross Thor for shits giggles and cold self-gain in MCU.

Basically, if you have a quick overview, you’ll see that everything Loki has done against Thor in MCU is motivated in deep fresh pain and hurt, that it hurts both of them. The stabbing in Avengers is not a joke, for either. Thor is not used to this, to his brother being an enemy. In the previous 3 films they’ve shared time in we see the grief and shock and disbelief and incomprehension, the attempts to reach him, and then in TDW we see reconciliation, alliance, and more grief. Thor would not be used to it. It would be an extremely callous and baseless thing for Loki to do. So you want to write it in? Sure, but it’s not a fucking joke. Or it shouldn’t be. Idk i don’t know what i’m trying to say. I’m saying it’s fucking wrong.

And yes, then Loki is back from the dead and in the throne of Asgard, and I’m very fricking sorry but Thor’s reaction to the news that Loki is lives is… yeah it’s deeply disappointing and again, wrong in the MCU continuity. And the fact that Loki betrayed him AGAIN wouldn’t be “Loki up to his old tricks again”, it would be the FIRST time Loki betrays him for personal gain, without deeper reasons based mostly on a hell of a lot of pain.

…

you know what, fuck it. Ragarök just doesn’t exist in the same fucking universe as the rest of the MCU and that’s it. Might work as actual adaptation of the comics, and good, great, have fun. But I was hoping to see MCU Thor and Loki. And it could have been done, they could have done both.  Just keep some fucking coherence. You can make jokes and then cut people deep with actual real feelings building up from the 3 previous films. They failed miserably at developing that relationship in a way that actually makes sense emotionally or narratively. That’s not where we left them. That’s not where they were. That’s not what TDW Thor would have said or done finding out Loki was alive. THEY DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER WITH AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT HAPPENED THERE, WHAT SORT OF SHIT CONTINUITY IS THAT. LOKI WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ACTUALLY DIED. ANYBODY THOUGHT WE MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN THE IN-VERSE TYING UP OF LOSE ENDS? no, fuck the first 3 films, booo boring. REALLY TALENTED PEOPLE WHO CARED ABOUT THE MATERIAL AND THE FANS ENOUGH WOULD HAVE MANAGED HUMOR AND DEEP EMOTIONS, OR AT LEAST FUCKING TRIED. They don’t even call themselves god of ANYTHING in the MCU. It’s the first fucking time any of them refer to themselves or others as “god of thunder” or “god of mischief” or “trickster god” or whatever. We do canonically have ODin in TDW explicitly saying “we are not gods” and then all of a sudden YOU’RE A GOD HE’S A GOD EVERYBODY IS A GOD.

I couldn’t fucking finish it the other day. That is not Thor. Its not even Comics Thor. My Thor has a fucking heart and feels things deeply, in his every incarnation BUT RAGNARÖK. HERE I’M MAKING MYSELF FURIOUS AGAIN.

And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if Ragnarök was the only Thor & Loki MCU film, I would not have written 6 THorki novels in 4 years, because I wouldn’t have given a shit about anyone in there.

i wish i could distance myself and enjoy it but no. I’ve come to this point. I don’t like that film. Everything feels wrong, the jokes aren’t that funny, and most are OOC. Cool aesthetics tho, and yay cool god of thunder and immigrant song.

they don’t even fucking touch once. Is that accidental?? No neck grabbing, no intense manhandling, no soul-searching glares?? Fuck that too.

oh fuck this i’m having a shit day.

Am I the only one who assumed the “stabbing” in the snake story was with, like, some kind of practice or toy weapon? That’s not to say it couldn’t have hurt a lot, but even before seeing all of this fandom interpretation of it (I’m new around here), I was definitely picturing the stabbing part happening with like a non-lethal weapon… I just find it so bizarre to see people seizing on that as some kind of proof that Loki is evil and always has been??

makerofrunevests:

lokiloveforever:

I think that story was intended to put an image in our minds of Thor being sensitive, thoughtful and gentle, and long-suffering at the hands of Loki, who we’re supposed to see as just a mean little shit who ran around randomly stabbing Thor for kicks and lols. Tom Hiddleston made the comparison between Thor and Loki to a son who was the star quarterback jock and the other son who was the sensitive artist. He and Rene Russo even created together Loki and Frigga having this sensitive, artistic relationship. Ragnarok tried to make Loki out to be like Draco Malfoy, always dark and “emo”, lurking, scheming his next attack on his brother, for no apparent reason. Just because. But that’s not how it was, and that’s not how he was. Loki was bright, funny, quick witted and full of hope, and highly intelligent. People who are that intelligent are very sensitive. And lonely. Maybe he did stab Thor, but I don’t think it was for no other reason than he just wanted to hurt him. I’m sure Loki could tell stories about things Thor did to him as well. But anyway, people seem to think it makes a good meme, and people love memes, right?

😃

This is how he was. He adored Thor and Odin, and just wanted to be seen in their eyes.

My headcanon is that he stabbed Thor because he was startled that somebody picked him up suddenly, and didn’t even realize that it was Thor–a headcanon based on how my sensitive, intelligent, introverted little brother used to react to being startled by yelling furiously and running straight at whatever had startled him.

I don’t even try to justify it via headcanon. If it happened, it was a pair of scissors, and melodramatic little boy Thor blew it out of proportion. But I think @lokiloveforever is exactly right about the abrupt, nonsensical retcon of the characters. It’s probably best to dismiss most of the movie’s dialogue as bullshit and retain the bare bones of the plot, at most, for fanfiction and continuity. Or just pretend none of the MCU movies made after 2015 exist except “Homecoming” and “Black Panther,” which is what I often do.