A Different Story

I think you know me by now. This is a long post.

*Major Spoilers for Avengers Infinity War and AoA*

Keep reading

I can’t believe I hadn’t read and reblogged this before… so much of it is so perfect, I kind of want to highlight the whole thing, but I’ll keep myself to a few paragraphs:

“Why do we care so much? Because we see ourselves in Loki. We, who felt different, were different, and were alone because of it. We, who knew how it felt to be ridiculed, rejected, vilified and despite all our efforts, never accepted, never loved for who we are. We, who hide all our hurt and pain under a mask but at some point we just couldn’t take it anymore and exploded. So we identified with Loki. …

“To a number of fans and audience, especially male audience with beliefs from a toxic masculinity culture this seemed threatening that a queer coded and/or feminine coded villain gets more female fans than heavily masculine coded heroes. They hated him. And they started to belittle his fans, by implying that Loki was only popular because of Tom or because he is pretty! That Loki’s fans are a bunch of fools that only lust after him for his looks. It seems they deliberately don’t want to understand. Still, it doesn’t really matter, right? Marvel won’t force the ideas of toxic masculinity on us, right? Wrong!

“Ragnarok happened.

“Ragnarok happened and it stepped on everything that was Loki. His characterization, his arc, his powers, his goals, his fans. Ragnarok ridiculed Loki in every possible way. It insulted us, made fun of us, told us that we were a bunch of fools for caring for Loki because he is just a stupid troublemaker. Ragnarok was a disaster of toxic masculinity.

“We saw it. We saw everything that was wrong with Ragnarok and pointed it out. But what were [I amend to: ARE] we called? Stans, apologists, haters, antis. …

“He didn’t deserve to die as a plot device to give Thor sth to avenge. We didn’t deserve this. We deserved to see the god of mischief in all his trickster glory. ‘No resurrection this time’ was directed to us, not Thor. They were telling us that you can rage and try to fight, but at the end, you are nothing, you will be broken like a ragdoll so the real hero can be heroic. The story is not about you, it was never about you. You are just a tragedy, you don’t deserve happiness, you can only be redeemed by sacrificing yourself. …

“The fate of Gamora and Nebula is also angers me. One gets killed in a disguise of love and the other gets tortured. The two characters that deserved to avenge themselves more than anyone, to get a chance for a proper fight, was used as plot devices. It’s disgusting! Gamora, Nebula and Loki, all feminine coded and/or queer coded characters were crushed by their masculine coded abuser. Toxic masculinity.”

Ragnarok and Infinity War were the triumph of toxic masculinity. For the people who will no doubt reply, “But Ragnarok was so great for queer representation!”… many people, some of whom are queer (I’m bi myself), strongly disagree. At the same time that Loki was more overtly coded as gay, he was made to look ridiculous, shallow, and incompetent. The other gay-coded character, the Grandmaster, was also depicted as ridiculous, and morally repugnant besides. This is not revolutionary; this is perfectly standard villainous queer-coding (thanks again, @fuckyeahrichardiii). The implied relationship between Loki and the Grandmaster cannot be anything other than predatory and opportunistic, which further reinforces negative stereotypes. Valkyrie’s bisexuality was not made explicit, unless you count the flashback scene with her presumed lover dying for her, which, again, is not revolutionary in any way (tragic dead lesbians, yay!).

Contrary to what a lot of Tumblr seems to think, white men do not have a monopoly on toxic masculinity. I’ve been seeing people make a point of adding “white” when talking about men who feel entitled to women’s bodies and attention – probably with the (admirable) aim to counter the *equally false* notion that non-white cultures are uniformly more misogynistic than white culture. Toxic masculinity manifests differently in different cultures, but the basic phenomenon crosses lines of race. We cannot assume that Ragnarok must be exempt from it because Taika Waititi is not white (or wears pineapple rompers); and a careful consideration of its characterization and tone – as well as the decision to replace Jane Foster, a woman whose strength is her intellect, with a woman who is “more Thor’s equal” because she can beat people up (adding Valkyrie would have been a much better decision, but we can’t have more than two central female characters, can we?) – yields the diagnosis that it drips with toxic masculinity.

ronniereyes:

i don’t care how much you love valkyrie. using her existence as a reason to talk about how much you hate jane is misogynistic.

before i get hate for this, let me explain.

yes, valkyrie is important. having a black woman being a lead character and a warrior and a love interest and bisexual (although it was never confirmed on screen) is important. i’m not saying that at all! i’m also not saying that valkyrie shouldn’t exist and we should just have jane.

what i’m saying is that it’s possible to have both, and the thing that pissed me off about ragnarok was that it spat in the face of that notion. it’s possible to have two leading ladies with vastly different abilities and personalities. because that’s what women are! having more physical prowess doesn’t make you better and being smarter doesn’t make you better. but the mcu fandom acts like now that we have valkyrie, who is clearly (sarcasm) better because she is a more skilled fighter than jane, it’s okay to completely forget about jane and sif (and darcy and frigga, for that matter). it’s now okay to say “oh jane wasn’t that great of a character i don’t like her but i love valkyrie so i’m #woke” and that’s not okay. jane is a BRILLIANT scientist who has won a nobel prize and she was the first female scientist in the mcu as well as the only female scientist with a recurring role until black panther! (i could talk about how fandom forgets maya hansen and helen cho too, but that’s for another post.)

jane is a character who gets an unfair amount of hate because she’s not a fighter. fandom decided she wasn’t a ~strong female character~ and now takes every opportunity to shit on her. jane and thor shouldn’t have to be romantically involved for her to get to be on screen. jane could’ve used her brain to help in ragnarok. they needed to escape sakaar, right? well that’s kinda jane’s specialty! and instead they just wrote her out with a disrespectful, throwaway line, and made a joke about an anus.

they could’ve easily picked up jane on earth when they visited benadryl cumberbatch and consulted with her. valkyrie still could’ve been the warrior and the love interest. but no, we can’t have more than two women in a movie can we? it’s not like the first two thor movies had FOUR leading women. saying “oh we have valkyrie now” doesn’t make it okay to disregard established female characters. your misogyny is showing.

i’d go into the fact that valkyrie isn’t even given a goddamn name in ragnarok, but i’m too damn tired. fandom thinks jane is just thor’s love interest played by natalie portman. now that thor has another love interest and natalie portman doesn’t want to come back, they think it’s okay to hate her. no, it’s not. just recast the part (like you’ve done with rhodey and bruce) and let her be a scientist. that’s it.

ronniereyes:

ok so that post i made earlier actually got more agreement than i thought it would (aka it got more than zero) so here’s a list of things i didn’t like:

• JANE FOSTER. i love jane foster, she is one of the very few women in the mcu who has never ever had any physical prowess. she was SUCH a focus of thor’s introduction to earth and the fact that they wrote her off is gross. they basically told everyone, “hey, as a girl, you’re not worth anything unless you can physically take down an army.” as a female aerospace engineer (and someone who heavily considered going into the field of astrophysics like jane), that hurts. jane is intelligent and that is enough. additionally, they wrote her out with a throwaway line. not any actual emotion.

• the murders of the warriors three. thor’s best friends. gone. murdered without so much as the camera zooming in on him. these people have committed treason multiple times for thor and he loves them, and they were done away with in a way similar to jane, with no acknowledgement that they were ever important.

• sif was also not present. like i know jamie has other work now on blindspot, but she’s also an important person in thor’s life and it’s SO out of character for her to not be there if asgard and its people are in danger. like god, i know frigga died, but that doesn’t mean that every other woman in thor’s life (jane, darcy, sif) is gone now too. honestly i know the director got “woke points” for valkyrie and hela but it’s still misogynistic if you write out the three established female characters.

• it felt empty. the whole film just lacked a heart and soul. i didn’t care about any of the characters because the new ones were never developed and the old ones ignored previous characterization in favor of whatever the director wanted to do. it was like man of steel in the sense that any of the characters could’ve dropped dead and i really wouldn’t have cared. (i don’t hate dc films btw haha. but this is a problem that ragnarok shared with man of steel.)

• it was very tell-y, not show-y. so in the beginning, valkyrie doesn’t want to help thor, right? so the movie proceeds and she’s standing her ground. then all of a sudden: “i decided sakaar was the best place to drink and die. but i don’t feel that way anymore. i want to help you.” like?? what in the world motivated that change of heart? WHY do you feel this way? and hey, maybe instead of just straight up having the character say those lines, SHOW THAT ON SCREEN. show me valkyrie starting to sympathize with thor. show me when she makes the decision to join them. show me that she overcame her past. i don’t need it verbally said to me; i’m not stupid.

• this is a continuation of my last point, but when thor was like “i choose to run towards my problems and not away from them, because that’s what heroes do.” like just SHOW me this!! having the character come out and say “HEY LOOK AT THIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT” is poor characterization and lazy storytelling.

• i can’t stress enough how empty it felt. the characters are the soul of the mcu and making the characters puppets is cheap. i just didn’t care. every other mcu movie, i cared deeply about the characters. yes, i wanted peter parker to beat the vulture! my heart broke when tony stark watched his parents die! god, i wanted scott lang to be able to see cassie so bad! but honestly? none of these characters made me care about them.

• as much as i hate to say this, i hated the humor. and i love mcu humor! humor is one of the core values of marvel comics that separates it from other publishers! there are people running around and fighting each other in spandex and it’s funny! but this movie felt like it was built around the humor, and that’s what took away the soul of the movie. movies can be full of humor and still have heart—look at guardians, look at deadpool, look at the first thor movie—but this one was more of a “hey, what jokes do we wanna tell? okay, lets build plot and characters around that!” as much as i love marvel’s humor, i hated how it was used in this film.

there’s probably more reasons, but these are the biggest ones lmao

toomanylokifeels:

philosopherking1887:

toomanylokifeels:

philosopherking1887:

Unpopular opinion: the movie with the best characterization of a mature Thor is Avengers: Age of Ultron.

The opinions on quality of Thor’s maturity and growth across films will always be subjective, I believe, but Thor in Age of Ultron is underrated in this regard. I think it’s the first movie where we see Thor not necessarily in the process of becoming more mature, but being mature. It’s the first film where Thor isn’t just actively trying to overcome the mistakes of his youth, trying to find his own way in the universe, and/or fighting with sentimental emotions to do what’s right.

I don’t think this opinion is unpopular simply because many people think that it is completely not true, but rather because this film is unpopular. It’s easy not to pay attention to Thor’s characterization when it’s not a fan favorite for a lot of people. From what I can remember, parts of the fandom were fizzling out and the excitement of the first Avengers film was wearing off. However, what I also remember was the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Thor despite it all.

I believe that was in part because Thor was the mature one. Thor was the wise one. Thor was the patient one. Thor was willing to face many unknowns in order to make the right decisions. Thor embodied qualities that people wished were present amongst all the other heroes. Of course, this was all made possible by Thor’s growth over the previous films. Thor was relatively sheltered from consequence for a long time as a prince, but was forced to mature.

Thor was more somber in Age of Ultron, due to the loss of his mother and his brother. While this could have made him self-destruct and I would not blame him for it, he chose to turn his mourning into something productive. He was shaken by the visions he was given, and chose to go out to find answers despite how frightening those answers may be. Furthermore, while his anger often gets the best of him, he only lost control on Tony Stark.

Why? …because he actually understood the gravity of Stark’s choices. Thor wasn’t having a tantrum. He wasn’t aggravated because he was prevented from doing something he wanted or needed to do. He wasn’t being impatient. He was angry because no one seems to be taking the situation as seriously as they should and if they are they’re wallowing in despair, while Thor has been working tirelessly to find solutions to a situation that could have been prevented.

Thor was the mature one in that film, because he had to be. To me, that doesn’t mean that Thor needs to maintain a serious outlook and attitude across the films moving forward. Thor continues to make difficult decisions despite the amount of pain and loss it brings him, and he’s been able to do so with a serious attitude and with a sunny optimistic disposition as well. Age of Ultron Thor embodies maturity in a lot of ways, though, in a manner that stands out.

It’s just unfortunate that the movie does not equally stand out.

Unpopular opinion #2: AOU is underrated, largely because people have the knee-jerk impulse to demonstrate their moral purity by hating on Joss Whedon for everything he does – not just his characterization of women, which does have some issues, but also his storytelling and characterization abilities more broadly. Plot-wise, AOU is no messier than Civil War; in terms of character arcs and philosophical depth, it’s in a different league entirely.

Unpopular opinion #3: Ragnarok does not show a mature Thor but “with a sunny optimistic disposition” instead of a serious one; it does not depict Thor at all. Infinity War attempts to get back to mature Thor, but is hampered by the need for some kind of continuity with Ragnarok (which showed no such consideration for its predecessors) and the fact that character was taking a backseat to a contrived plot throughout IW.

Unpopular opinion #1b: Thor in AOU is exactly what “funny Thor” should look like. His sense of humor is subtle and deadpan; he occasionally veers into the undignified, but never comes off as a buffoon.

For further clarification, I’m not stating whether I like or dislike any of the films or their creators, nor am I measuring the films against each other in quality. Age of Ultron is one of the least well received movies in the MCU thus far, and the fandom didn’t respond as strongly to it as they did to the previous Avengers film for various reasons that I’m not going to get into because this was about Thor. Not the quality of the film. Civil War also hadn’t been out yet to make any comparison, but that movie also didn’t get the best reception.

So, as I was saying, the movie does not stand out by comparison even though Thor definitely stood out to fans of the character. This isn’t based on my opinion of the movie, but rather critical reception of the film and lack of fandom interest compared to the previous Avengers. Furthermore, despite my disagreements with your opinion re: #3, I never mentioned Ragnarok or Infinity War.

I stated the following:

“Thor continues to make difficult decisions despite the amount of pain and loss it brings him, and he’s been able to do so with a serious attitude and with a sunny optimistic disposition as well.”

…because it is something that I have noticed applies to multiple works across mediums wherein Thor appears. I don’t want to limit Thor’s characterization to very serious or overly optimistic when I have seen both from Thor whilst dealing with making mature decisions. However, that wasn’t why I responded in the first place. It was to further discuss how Thor is noticeably mature in Age of Ultron, which fans responded positively to despite the comparative lack of success of the film.

So, you’re projecting your negative attitudes about Ragnarok onto my own observations of his character even though I was making a general statement about Thor and the mature decisions he has made, perhaps just because I don’t see Thor as a vapid representation of himself in Ragnarok like you do (which, I see no point arguing. People seem pretty adamant about where they stand with this film and it’s not my job to force people to like something that I like.)

I don’t agree with your last point either, but I’m not going to argue against it because it’s all based on subjective likes or dislikes regarding Thor and humor. Again, I’ve seen creators use a wide range of it across mediums as well. So, I really see no point arguing which one is the most “correct.” I’m also not going to argue against it because I don’t see how it’s relevant to Thor’s maturity in Age of Ultron. I don’t see how 99% of this response to me was relevant. Instead, it just reads as completely passive aggressive and hostile towards me for no particular reason other than you don’t like Ragnarok.

I agree with most of what you said about Thor in Age of Ultron, including the bit about why he lost his temper with Tony. I do think he still has some anger management issues, and sometimes forgets how much more fragile humans are, but only when the stakes are very, very high.

You said that AOU was “not a fan favorite for a lot of people” and “did not equally stand out” as a whole; I offered an explanation. I think people have trouble acknowledging any of its virtues, including Thor’s characterization, because of the Whedon-hate.

As to Ragnarok, I read between the lines of the statement “that doesn’t mean that Thor needs to maintain a serious outlook and attitude across the films moving forward. Thor continues to make difficult decisions despite the amount of pain and loss it brings him, and he’s been able to do so with a serious attitude and with a sunny optimistic disposition as well.” That seemed to be referring to the “lightening” of his character in TR and consequently in IW. I was registering my disagreement with the apparent claim that Thor in Ragnarok represents a continuation of the maturity he had achieved by AOU, just with a change in his level of cheerfulness or optimism. Because you said “across the films moving forward,” I assumed you were talking about the MCU rather than the comics, with which I admit to being less familiar. So yes, my response was relevant to something you said, albeit something said indirectly or by implication rather than explicitly.

Finally, I disagree with your claim that judgments about Thor’s characterization in AOU vs. Ragnarok are “all based on subjective likes or dislikes regarding Thor and humor.” Like many people who work on the philosophy of art (not that I’ve worked on it much, but I hope to in the future), I hold that judgments about the quality of works of art are neither wholly objective nor wholly subjective. There is no one single interpretation that is authoritative, but there can be better and worse interpretations, which often entail or at least suggest a certain range of evaluative judgments about the quality of the work. And if anyone is tempted to say “They’re just popcorn movies, why are you taking them so seriously”… Athenian tragedies and Shakespeare’s plays were the popcorn movies of their day. My dissertation advisor writes papers about “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad.” I’m not saying the MCU will survive as this age’s great art, but the fact that it’s pop culture doesn’t mean it’s not worth thinking seriously about.

toomanylokifeels:

philosopherking1887:

Unpopular opinion: the movie with the best characterization of a mature Thor is Avengers: Age of Ultron.

The opinions on quality of Thor’s maturity and growth across films will always be subjective, I believe, but Thor in Age of Ultron is underrated in this regard. I think it’s the first movie where we see Thor not necessarily in the process of becoming more mature, but being mature. It’s the first film where Thor isn’t just actively trying to overcome the mistakes of his youth, trying to find his own way in the universe, and/or fighting with sentimental emotions to do what’s right.

I don’t think this opinion is unpopular simply because many people think that it is completely not true, but rather because this film is unpopular. It’s easy not to pay attention to Thor’s characterization when it’s not a fan favorite for a lot of people. From what I can remember, parts of the fandom were fizzling out and the excitement of the first Avengers film was wearing off. However, what I also remember was the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Thor despite it all.

I believe that was in part because Thor was the mature one. Thor was the wise one. Thor was the patient one. Thor was willing to face many unknowns in order to make the right decisions. Thor embodied qualities that people wished were present amongst all the other heroes. Of course, this was all made possible by Thor’s growth over the previous films. Thor was relatively sheltered from consequence for a long time as a prince, but was forced to mature.

Thor was more somber in Age of Ultron, due to the loss of his mother and his brother. While this could have made him self-destruct and I would not blame him for it, he chose to turn his mourning into something productive. He was shaken by the visions he was given, and chose to go out to find answers despite how frightening those answers may be. Furthermore, while his anger often gets the best of him, he only lost control on Tony Stark.

Why? …because he actually understood the gravity of Stark’s choices. Thor wasn’t having a tantrum. He wasn’t aggravated because he was prevented from doing something he wanted or needed to do. He wasn’t being impatient. He was angry because no one seems to be taking the situation as seriously as they should and if they are they’re wallowing in despair, while Thor has been working tirelessly to find solutions to a situation that could have been prevented.

Thor was the mature one in that film, because he had to be. To me, that doesn’t mean that Thor needs to maintain a serious outlook and attitude across the films moving forward. Thor continues to make difficult decisions despite the amount of pain and loss it brings him, and he’s been able to do so with a serious attitude and with a sunny optimistic disposition as well. Age of Ultron Thor embodies maturity in a lot of ways, though, in a manner that stands out.

It’s just unfortunate that the movie does not equally stand out.

Unpopular opinion #2: AOU is underrated, largely because people have the knee-jerk impulse to demonstrate their moral purity by hating on Joss Whedon for everything he does – not just his characterization of women, which does have some issues, but also his storytelling and characterization abilities more broadly. Plot-wise, AOU is no messier than Civil War; in terms of character arcs and philosophical depth, it’s in a different league entirely.

Unpopular opinion #3: Ragnarok does not show a mature Thor but “with a sunny optimistic disposition” instead of a serious one; it does not depict Thor at all. Infinity War attempts to get back to mature Thor, but is hampered by the need for some kind of continuity with Ragnarok (which showed no such consideration for its predecessors) and the fact that character was taking a backseat to a contrived plot throughout IW.

Unpopular opinion #1b: Thor in AOU is exactly what “funny Thor” should look like. His sense of humor is subtle and deadpan; he occasionally veers into the undignified, but never comes off as a buffoon.

juliabohemian:

loki-god-of-menace:

I know the collective fandom likes to pretend like Ragnarok was the ‘pièce de résistance’, of the Thor movies, especially in regards to Loki’s characterization and Loki and Thor’s relationship, but aside from my numerous grievances with that movie….

None of Loki’s ‘heroics’ or loyalty or anything being praised as ‘amazing character development from Ragnarok’ is new, and it was NOT Ragnarok that brought it about or first proved its existence.

It was Thor: The Dark World

^{Yes. Does anyone remember the movie where:}

^{– Loki agreed to help Thor attempt to save the world with no other reward than a supposed ‘revenge’ for their mother’s death (which Thor did not intend on giving him; see “You fool, you fool, you didn’t listen.” when Loki interfered with Kurse/Thor) and return to eternal imprisonment? (”Vengeance… then afterward this cell.”)}

^{– Loki saved Jane from a void bomb and almost got himself killed in the process. Something he was not beholden to do, and could have passed off easily as inevitable or unavoidable if he was evul.}

^{– Loki saved Thor’s life, and almost ‘died’ in the process (which cannot be disproved, since if we want to hold Ragnarok up as the gold standard, it went out of the way to prove that Loki’s illusions cannot be touch/can have things thrown through them, so no. Kurse could only have stabbed Loki and Loki alone).}

^{– Loki did not betray Thor (You might say, “He took the throne!!! And deposed Odin!!!”. Oh. You mean the throne Thor was avoiding and refused entirely by his own volition? And deposed Odin, who… told the guards to stop Thor ‘by any means necessary’ leading them to shoot at him i.e. stop Thor, even if you have to kill him. Odin, who would have done exactly as Thor said, “Failure will mean our deaths; success will mean exile”, and either exiled Thor again or executed him, in light of the fact Odin would have executed Loki if not for Frigga and told the guards they were ok to kill Thor?)}

^{Yeah. That was all… Thor: TDW. That movie where Loki loved his mother, and cared enough about Odin to still be hurt by his rejection and try to show Odin the hypocrisy of the situation with, “I went down to earth as a benevolent god…. just like you.”}

^{Yep. The movie where Loki called Thor ‘brother’ throughout the whole film, and saved his girlfriend, and saved Thor?}

Ragnarok was a crack fic written by someone whose only knowledge of the franchise came from memes they found on Reddit. That’s my new headcanon.

@fuckyeahrichardiii you’re not the only one who thinks TDW was great 🙂

the-haven-of-fiction:

peoplearenotdiamonds:

hiddlememes:

free-loki:

cheese-and-craziness:

Now if that’s doesn’t spark a Loki movie, I don’t know what will.

I love you for saying this.

“Not enough Loki.” -Rolling Stone

Just casually bringing this back in 2018

^^^ in which I am reminded how much I love The Dark World and detest Ragnarok

And Taika Waititi’s response to this critical consensus – probably motivated by Chris Hemsworth, and with the blessing of Kevin Feige – was to gut Loki’s character, to ridicule and emasculate him at every turn, to deprive him of the complex interiority that all of these critics love, to reduce his motivations to “I couldn’t help myself, I’m a trickster” (an actual line from the ridiculous play in Ragnarok), a.k.a. “I did it for the lulz.”

Don’t give me that “But he foregrounded Thor and Loki’s relationship!” bullshit. He reinforced and endorsed the imbalance that was always present; he dismissed and delegitimized all of Loki’s grievances and presented his complete submission to Thor’s will as his redemption.

shine-of-asgard:

loki-god-of-menace:

lokihiddleston:

“Almighty Thanos, I, Loki, Prince of Asgard… Odinson… The
rightful king of Jotunheim, God of Mischief… Do hereby pledge to you, my
undying fidelity.”

[That deep, steadying, terrified breath before his attempt on Thanos’ life just kills me. You can see the tears clinging to his eyes. You can watch him stiffen and coil. You can see him pull all of himself together to make this last, resigned but still brave-to-the-end attempt at bringing down Thanos. It’s heart-wrenching, watching him go to his death to protect Thor.

He deserved better. He always will.]

Anyone remembers the little promotion video of TH filming this and making little up and down jumps? Some people wanted to see a sign of hope in that. I remember thinking that it looked the opposite. Like psyching oneself to do something very unpleasant. Like a come on, let’s get this over with.

Feige also commented some time ago on the scene being difficult for TH. That’s 3 people saying the same fucking thing! So… Not cute. Not funny. And don’t try to tell me TH didn’t know Loki was being shat on. He might have tried to give his best in that scene, but no-one in fandom can even phantom what was going on there. What was Loki trying to accomplish. Concpiracy theories abound. Which is a big mark of how badly written that scene was. It has zero closure and zero sense. But nothing of it it TH fault.

God now I hate these hacks with renewed passion.

I wish Tom had had the power, or maybe the chutzpah, to protest on his character’s behalf. I wish I could believe that there was some big plan, some greater sense, to this absolutely idiotic and gratuitously violent and gruesome death. Which is to say, I wish Markus & McFeely and the Russo brothers had any sense of character or narrative logic.

But more than anything, I wish Feige and Marvel hadn’t alienated Joss Whedon. I wish he had been writing Infinity War. Honestly, I kind of wish he had been around to put the brakes on Taika Waititi’s (and Chris Hemsworth’s) complete mangling of Thor, Loki, and Bruce’s characters. He, unlike M&M and the Russos, had affection and understanding for the Asgardian characters. He was invested in making Loki interesting and formidable, as a reluctant villain and antihero (as reflected in the scenes he rewrote in TDW). He established the connection between Loki and Thanos and I firmly believe he intended to give us some payoff for it.

I find it absurd and ironic that the Marvel higher-ups were doing enough micromanaging on AOU that Joss Whedon threw up his hands in frustration, but apparently they gave Waititi completely free rein to ad lib his way through Ragnarok. I think that shows how little they care about the Thor franchise; it was making them less money, so they were willing to throw it under the bus artistically.

juliabohemian:

In light of THIS post:

First, I’d really like to write more about this, but free time is intermittent for me. Please, please don’t comment or share this just to argue with me. If you have well thought out points that are based on critical thinking, okay. Otherwise, that’s not why I come to this site. And I will probably just end up blocking you to save myself the stress.

That being said…

I think my issue with Thor fans is that they don’t analyze Loki’s relationship with him critically. Imagine that you just met these two guys. They weren’t gods. They were just two brothers. One wasn’t a hero and one wasn’t a villain. They were just regular guys. Their relationship would seem woefully imbalanced. Most people’s perception of these two characters is deeply colored by the fact that one is marketed to us as a hero and the other a villain.

I often seen people cite examples of how Thor loves Loki -but then they will list something that is actually an example of how their relationship is dysfunctional. Thor “trusting” Loki in TDW was not love. It was desperation to save Jane. It was about his infatuation for Jane. Thor’s relationship with Jane didn’t last -most likely because it was more about possessing her than actually being with her physically.

Thor telling Loki “maybe you’re not so bad” or “maybe there’s still good in you” or “I thought the world of you” is not love. It’s manipulative and passive aggressive and once again, dysfunctional.

Thor using Loki to do “get help” was not an example of how well they get along. It was an example of how Thor continually disregards Loki’s feelings, as long as it serves his purpose.

Thor is nice to Loki when he needs something from him. The eagerness with which Loki responds to this is disturbing. They are both very messed up people. Loki’s eagerness to gain validation from someone is most likely what led to his entanglement with Thanos.

Thor’s obsession with Earth is not love. It’s ego. He likes the idea of protecting someone who is smaller than he is. He likes that they adore and worship them there. And in his defense…who the hell wouldn’t like that?

Does that mean Thor isn’t capable of love? No way. It just means that because of his personalty, experience and maturity level, his concept of what it means to love someone is fairly skewed. Loki’s too, for that matter.

Now all of that being said, I don’t mind that this is their relationship. If they weren’t dysfunctional, they would likely be very boring. I continue to be confused as to why people want to defend Thor, as though the fact that he is a hero means he is supposed to be completely without flaws or questionable motives.

In classic literature, heroes are flawed by nature.

Here’s what Thor SHOULD have said to Fury in Avengers: “My brother tried to kill himself and I’m frankly relieved to find out that he’s still alive. He is unwell, I’m afraid. Please allow me to talk to him and reason with him and take him back home.” And then Thor would have done his best to return Loki to Asgard immediately, instead of dicking around on a hillside with Tony Stark and then dragging Loki off so SHIELD could put him in Bruce Banner’s cage. Those would have been the actions of someone who loved and cared for his brother. Unfortunately, they would also have made for a very boring movie, which is why we got something else.

I will add to this later, when I have time.

I have less of a problem with Thor’s lapses in sensitivity in The Avengers than in Thor: Ragnarok, because he’s still working on his process of maturation and we’re aware that he comes from a warrior culture steeped in toxic masculinity and completely lacking a compassionate understanding of mental illness. But we watch him growing up through the movies that follow… until Thor: Ragnarok, when all of that is more than reversed.

The other extremely problematic thing that I see people citing as an example of how much Thor loves Loki is “Thor didn’t kill Loki when he could have.” Like, what? That is such an incredibly low bar. No shit you don’t kill someone you love, even when they do something shitty to you. If you love them, you also don’t inflict unnecessary pain on them. Saying “Thor just immobilized him with the obedience disk instead of killing him for his betrayal” is like saying “You know that husband loves his wife because he only sprained her wrist when he found her cheating on him, he didn’t actually break it.”

And no, that is not comparable to arguing that Loki still cares about Thor even when he’s in villain mode because he only does things to incapacitate him, not kill him. What Loki does when he’s having a complete emotional and psychological breakdown in Thor or when he’s been manipulated, probably tortured, and severely coerced by Thanos (NOT brainwashed or mind-controlled, I didn’t say that) is NOT comparable to what Thor does when he’s completely in control of his rational faculties, as part of his “clever plan” to reform Loki. In my fanfiction, I’ve had to reinterpret that incident in Ragnarok as Thor reacting in irrational anger, because otherwise it’s unconscionable.

latent-thoughts:

mastreworld:

kaori04:

foundlingmother:

Loki fans don’t dislike Ragnarok!Loki because he’s heroic, mischievous, charming, etc.

Loki fans dislike Ragnarok!Loki because Ragnarok mocks and/or ignores Loki’s depth, character arc and development, and mental health issues.

Fuck it, let’s get a little too personal, shall we? Warning: what comes under the cut is heavy shit.

Keep reading

Yes, thank you! I am so tired of seeing statements as “how can you dislile Ragnarok!Loki if he is so mischievous/witty/funny and overcomes his traumas all of a sudden because Thor specifically told him to and becomes happy instead of miserable probably because he realised that being happy is better then being miserable. And also his perfect brother approves, that’s what really matters, right?” Yep, that’s all real reasons how people are improving their mental state in real life, not the opposite, nope.

Also such statements show that these people never really read why some of us dislike TR and just made up reasons we don’t like it themselves and now are accusing us that we are having wrong reasons that are not even our reasons asdsgahfgd

Yes, this! It took me 28 years to get a proper diagnosis as proof that I have an innate neurological disability and am not lazy or difficult for the heck of it. The attitude towards people with neurological or emotional trauma is despicable and seeing it so blatantly displayed in a movie is fucking hurtful. We don’t deserve respect in “normal” people’s eyes, do we? It’s perfectly fine to make fun of us and put us down because we can’t function the way people are supposed to.

As for “Loki stan”, that’s a title I’d wear with pride.

This bigotry by certain Thor: Ragnarok fans matches well with the callous attitude of TW, CH and the writers of the movie. Mental health issues and trauma are made fun of in the form of immature humor.

It’s a typical case of where a person hurts you and then calls you stupid for reacting negatively to it, as it was supposed to be a joke.

The sheer level of the dismissal and rudeness is baffling. Saying things like-

“You’re not fun at all!”

“You just hate on everything!”

“Why take a movie seriously? It’s not real life!”

“You just want his dick, that’s all!”

It reflects how TW sees the character of Loki and his fandom. It’s why that scene with the play is like a direct slap to those people who dared to identify with Loki and his pain, who dared to like a character which was crafted with care and love by its actor.

Of course these fans don’t get it. They’re too far up TW’s ass (yes, I’m taking this argument now, as us Loki fans are reduced to being thirsty for his dick). Character nuances are lost on them, including Thor’s. They’re wooed by the colours and action sequences, which btw are more the result of a dedicated Marvel team, rather than TW’s brainchild.

Also, as a POC living in a country ravaged by colonialism, I feel like cutting those bitches who say that we’re only targeting TW because he’s a brown guy. Incompetence and arrogance is what I hate, not the bloody skin colour.

/Rant over.