Tag: thor ragnarok criticism

writernotwaiting:

philosopherking1887:

pinknoonicorn:

writernotwaiting:

writernotwaiting:

I’m not quite sure why I feel compelled to make this declaration, though it may be vaguely related to posts I have seen floating around making statements about Loki and/or Thor that just flat out seem to defy logic. So here are a couple of short lists.

1. Things that are true in my head:

·       When we first meet Thor he really would have made an awful king.

·       Thor is not a dumb jock. He is intelligent, but at the start of the first movie he is really arrogant and lacks both empathy and the willingness to think about the long-term consequences of his actions.

·       That Loki was marginalized by Thor’s friends but not flat-out bullied. That for years he was the annoying little brother who they really didn’t want around but who wouldn’t leave. (As a little sister who grew up in a neighborhood where there were no other little girls to hang around with, I know exactly what it looks and feels like to be Big Brother’s Tag-along).

·       When Loki tells Thor that Odin is dead, it’s bc he still thinks Thor would be a horrible king and wants to make sure he stays on earth.

·       When Loki sends the Destroyer after Thor, he has no reason to believe Thor has changed at all. 

·      When Loki sends the Destroyer to eliminate Thor, Loki has also kind of started to go off the rails with self-loathing and is Not Thinking Rationally, and at this time he really did intend to inflict serious, permanent damage. Frigga really should have recognized this and shaken Loki by the collar. I am not sure why Marvel chose to portray Frigga so passively here. She is a an objet d’art in this movie, which is unfair to her character.

·       Loki fully intended to commit suicide when he let go of Odin’s spear, both bc of his perceived rejection by Odin and his internalized racism.

·       Thor really does love his bro and showed amazing self restraint in not pulverizing him when they fight on the Bifrost, esp bc he has no idea why his little brother is acting like a psychopath.

·       Thanos tortured Loki before sending him to earth (come on! look at that after credits scene with Selvig!).

·       When Thor initially shows up in the first Avengers movie, he was totally ready to take Loki back to Asgard and give him All The Hugs.

·       Loki would have taken All The Hugs had he not been scared shitless of Thanos.

·       When Loki dropped Thor from the helicarrier and when he stabbed him, his aim was to incapacitate Thor not kill him. Loki never believed anything he did would cause more than minor injury Thor (c’mon—that tiny little dagger? That’s like an Asgardian mosquito bite; plus, he probably thought Thor would get stuck in that glass cage long enough to stay out of the way–I will never be convinced that Loki believed the fall would be fatal).

·       Loki fully expected to lose the battle in NY and honestly figured being in jail on Asgard was the safest place to be.

·       Odin is a dick.

·       Loki really did get run through by Kurse’s blade trying to save his brother’s life. (and honestly this is the movie where I pinpoint his redemption arc, and I think that giving him a redemption arc in Ragnarok was redundant)

·       Loki really did almost die.

·       Loki disguised himself as Odin in order to hide from Thanos.

·       A couple of years in a nursing home would in no way hasten Odin’s death nor did Loki intend it to, though I’m sure Loki took great delight in the seeing his all-powerful dick of a father reduced to being spoon fed by someone who used baby talk (“Open wide, Mr. Borson! We don’t want your tummy to get upset when we take our medicine!”).

·       Thor is still not a dumb jock, but he is now capable of introspection and occasional outburts of humility. Jury’s still out on empathy, but I’m willing to be convinced.

2.    Things in my head that I hope are true:

·       That before Thanos showed up Loki and Thor at least talked about the fact that Loki took a big ass sword right through his sternum.

·       That they really did hug.

·       That Tony and Loki get shit-faced drunk together at some point and bitch about their shitty dads.

@foundlingmother–I’m not entirely sure I would call MCU Thor compassionate, because I think in order to feel compassion, one has to first be able to imagine what it’s like to be someone else, and as I said, I’m not entirely convinced Thor has developed much capacity for empathy. I’m thinking particularly in Ultron when Banner is traumatized over the destruction caused by the Hulk, and Thor goes all Viking warrior about the screams of the dead. Not so empathetic. (though, as I said, I am willing to be convinced if some one wants to take up that discussion).

I would say, however, that Thor has an incredibly strong senses of duty, honor, and obligation. That’s why he’s polite when he’s really supposed to be (hanging up Mjolnir when he goes to Jane’s apartment like the good boy his mother raised). That’s why he works so hard to save Asgard from Hela–it’s his duty.  That’s why he finally gives in and agrees to be king–obligation.

I would also repeat that he really loves his brother, dammit, and no one can convince me otherwise. So I think you are absolutely correct, @lola-zwietbeste, there is no way Thor knew that Loki had been tortured when he dragged him back home in chains. And even though he was a dick, I don’t think Odin knew, either. Certainly they would both have felt honor bound to revenge Loki’s torture as a slight against family and realm, though it is bit odd that no one thought to do a little bit of forensic investigating. Again, Odin=dick.

@writernotwaiting not one single thing here I disagree with. So refreshing to see rationality in this fandom.

I agree with @writernotwaiting on virtually all of this, except for two minor points:

1. I do think that it is partially accurate to say that Loki was “bullied” by Thor and his friends. I base that claim entirely on things we actually see in the movie and in the “Never doubt that I love you” deleted scene that we all accept as canon (so nobody go off on me about it having been deleted). Nonetheless, I do not hate them or entirely blame them for this. Consult my explanations at the bottom of the threads here and here.

2. I think that throughout the movies before Ragnarok, Thor is working on developing… sympathy, if not empathy. He slips up every now and then; he doesn’t really get why someone would be distraught over having killed enemies, but he catches on when Steve and Tony signal that he’s saying the wrong things and tries to backtrack. There’s something a bit incongruous about expecting someone from a warrior culture like Asgard to feel compassion, to treat someone else’s suffering as one’s own. As ever, I find Nietzsche’s contrast between noble and slave values enlightening: compassion and the imperative to relieve suffering are very distinctive of slave morality; of course Thor is driven by honor and duty – and respect for those he regards as his peers (if not his equals), including the human Avengers. Respect involves being aware of someone’s feelings, taking them into account, but also holding the person to the standards you accept for yourself – which explains why Thor flips out on Tony about the Ultron situation.

Finally: as you know, because I’ve said it a lot, I don’t think the version of Thor we see in Ragnarok, whom I call Thor* to mark the difference, is the same character as the Thor we see in Thor 1 through Age of Ultron. For that reason I think it’s misleading to try to track a development through Ragnarok and (to a lesser extent) Infinity War. It would be like trying to draw conclusions about the character of Thomas Jefferson from his depictions in 1776 and Hamilton (for the musical nerds out there…). The fact that different writers are involved isn’t necessarily prohibitive, because comics series can go through a number of different writers without losing continuity; it’s about whether the new writer respects the characterization that has been developed by previous writers and builds on it in a psychologically realistic way.

I think perhaps I’ll forgo a discussion of Ragnarok here, as I suspect it would rapidly devolve. There are quite a few things I see as problematic about it, but many other things that I quite liked, so we can save that for some other time.

@illwynd I think offered a very nice comment on the issue of compassion, but I think you’ve already seen that. I might quibble about how or in what way certain values and their expressions overlap. Compassion is not empathy, but it could still be argued that empathy is a prerequisite for compassion. And far be it for an English major to argue with Neitzsche, but I don’t see respect and compassion as mutually exclusive.

However, these are, arguably, differences only in the nuance of terminology rather than differences in substance. Thor is (again as illwynd points out) not static (ooh, I made an electricity pun! lol)—he is constantly trying to be better. He is (to completely misuse another philosopher) neither being nor not being—he is always becoming.

You’re right that a discussion about the quality of Ragnarok would probably rapidly devolve, but I bring it up because it’s not irrelevant to the disputes about Thor’s character and his regard for Loki that have been going around. People on both sides have been talking as if TR–Thor is continuous with pre-TR-Thor and I think that’s the source of some of the confusion: Loki stans treat Thor’s behavior in TR as evidence that Thor was always an abusive bully and never cared about Loki’s well-being; Thor stans treat how obviously Thor cares about Loki in previous films as evidence that he still shows genuine love and concern for him in TR. I’m wondering whether, if we carved off TR, there would be more agreement about Thor’s growth from where we see him at the beginning of Thor 1 and his imperfectly expressed but sincere love for Loki from Thor through TDW.

I had a discussion with @illwynd (also relevant to @foundlingmother‘s reblog) and we agreed that we have somewhat different understandings of “compassion.” I tend to align it more closely with both empathy and pity than some people do, largely because of the way it’s used to translate the German word Mitleid: literally “with-suffering” (or, more intuitively, “suffering with”), which is the direct translation of the Latin components of compassion. The etymology is going to be a lot more obvious to German speakers than to English speakers, since Mitleid is made up of two ordinary German words, so it makes sense that the English word has lost some of those connotations. If, in general, compassion is being used to mean “caring about someone else’s well-being,” “wishing others well,” “benevolence,” etc., I definitely agree that Thor has that in spades – and that he’s a work in progress, even as late as AOU, and that’s part of what’s so endearing about him.

The point was not that respect and compassion are mutually exclusive; it’s just that they represent different impulses, different ways of regarding your obligations toward others. In a noble value system, respect is given sparingly, only to those you have judged your equals; in some Christian-derived value systems, such as Kantian ethics, you owe respect to every human being simply in virtue of their being human. Respect is about regarding the other as an agent, as someone who has intelligible goals and does things for reasons; compassion is more about regarding the other as a patient, as someone who feels and suffers. Given how deeply feeling is interwoven with our desires and motivations, they can’t be so easily teased apart… Maybe I think of respect as involving holding someone else a little more at arm’s length, recognizing the reality and the importance of their needs and goals to them, but not making them your own, and definitely not assuming you always know what’s going on with the other person or how they feel about their situation. Thor’s failure to ask Loki his reasons for his bad actions was a failure of respect as much as of compassion.

pinknoonicorn:

writernotwaiting:

writernotwaiting:

I’m not quite sure why I feel compelled to make this declaration, though it may be vaguely related to posts I have seen floating around making statements about Loki and/or Thor that just flat out seem to defy logic. So here are a couple of short lists.

1. Things that are true in my head:

·       When we first meet Thor he really would have made an awful king.

·       Thor is not a dumb jock. He is intelligent, but at the start of the first movie he is really arrogant and lacks both empathy and the willingness to think about the long-term consequences of his actions.

·       That Loki was marginalized by Thor’s friends but not flat-out bullied. That for years he was the annoying little brother who they really didn’t want around but who wouldn’t leave. (As a little sister who grew up in a neighborhood where there were no other little girls to hang around with, I know exactly what it looks and feels like to be Big Brother’s Tag-along).

·       When Loki tells Thor that Odin is dead, it’s bc he still thinks Thor would be a horrible king and wants to make sure he stays on earth.

·       When Loki sends the Destroyer after Thor, he has no reason to believe Thor has changed at all. 

·      When Loki sends the Destroyer to eliminate Thor, Loki has also kind of started to go off the rails with self-loathing and is Not Thinking Rationally, and at this time he really did intend to inflict serious, permanent damage. Frigga really should have recognized this and shaken Loki by the collar. I am not sure why Marvel chose to portray Frigga so passively here. She is a an objet d’art in this movie, which is unfair to her character.

·       Loki fully intended to commit suicide when he let go of Odin’s spear, both bc of his perceived rejection by Odin and his internalized racism.

·       Thor really does love his bro and showed amazing self restraint in not pulverizing him when they fight on the Bifrost, esp bc he has no idea why his little brother is acting like a psychopath.

·       Thanos tortured Loki before sending him to earth (come on! look at that after credits scene with Selvig!).

·       When Thor initially shows up in the first Avengers movie, he was totally ready to take Loki back to Asgard and give him All The Hugs.

·       Loki would have taken All The Hugs had he not been scared shitless of Thanos.

·       When Loki dropped Thor from the helicarrier and when he stabbed him, his aim was to incapacitate Thor not kill him. Loki never believed anything he did would cause more than minor injury Thor (c’mon—that tiny little dagger? That’s like an Asgardian mosquito bite; plus, he probably thought Thor would get stuck in that glass cage long enough to stay out of the way–I will never be convinced that Loki believed the fall would be fatal).

·       Loki fully expected to lose the battle in NY and honestly figured being in jail on Asgard was the safest place to be.

·       Odin is a dick.

·       Loki really did get run through by Kurse’s blade trying to save his brother’s life. (and honestly this is the movie where I pinpoint his redemption arc, and I think that giving him a redemption arc in Ragnarok was redundant)

·       Loki really did almost die.

·       Loki disguised himself as Odin in order to hide from Thanos.

·       A couple of years in a nursing home would in no way hasten Odin’s death nor did Loki intend it to, though I’m sure Loki took great delight in the seeing his all-powerful dick of a father reduced to being spoon fed by someone who used baby talk (“Open wide, Mr. Borson! We don’t want your tummy to get upset when we take our medicine!”).

·       Thor is still not a dumb jock, but he is now capable of introspection and occasional outburts of humility. Jury’s still out on empathy, but I’m willing to be convinced.

2.    Things in my head that I hope are true:

·       That before Thanos showed up Loki and Thor at least talked about the fact that Loki took a big ass sword right through his sternum.

·       That they really did hug.

·       That Tony and Loki get shit-faced drunk together at some point and bitch about their shitty dads.

@foundlingmother–I’m not entirely sure I would call MCU Thor compassionate, because I think in order to feel compassion, one has to first be able to imagine what it’s like to be someone else, and as I said, I’m not entirely convinced Thor has developed much capacity for empathy. I’m thinking particularly in Ultron when Banner is traumatized over the destruction caused by the Hulk, and Thor goes all Viking warrior about the screams of the dead. Not so empathetic. (though, as I said, I am willing to be convinced if some one wants to take up that discussion).

I would say, however, that Thor has an incredibly strong senses of duty, honor, and obligation. That’s why he’s polite when he’s really supposed to be (hanging up Mjolnir when he goes to Jane’s apartment like the good boy his mother raised). That’s why he works so hard to save Asgard from Hela–it’s his duty.  That’s why he finally gives in and agrees to be king–obligation.

I would also repeat that he really loves his brother, dammit, and no one can convince me otherwise. So I think you are absolutely correct, @lola-zwietbeste, there is no way Thor knew that Loki had been tortured when he dragged him back home in chains. And even though he was a dick, I don’t think Odin knew, either. Certainly they would both have felt honor bound to revenge Loki’s torture as a slight against family and realm, though it is bit odd that no one thought to do a little bit of forensic investigating. Again, Odin=dick.

@writernotwaiting not one single thing here I disagree with. So refreshing to see rationality in this fandom.

I agree with @writernotwaiting on virtually all of this, except for two minor points:

1. I do think that it is partially accurate to say that Loki was “bullied” by Thor and his friends. I base that claim entirely on things we actually see in the movie and in the “Never doubt that I love you” deleted scene that we all accept as canon (so nobody go off on me about it having been deleted). Nonetheless, I do not hate them or entirely blame them for this. Consult my explanations at the bottom of the threads here and here.

2. I think that throughout the movies before Ragnarok, Thor is working on developing… sympathy, if not empathy. He slips up every now and then; he doesn’t really get why someone would be distraught over having killed enemies, but he catches on when Steve and Tony signal that he’s saying the wrong things and tries to backtrack. There’s something a bit incongruous about expecting someone from a warrior culture like Asgard to feel compassion, to treat someone else’s suffering as one’s own. As ever, I find Nietzsche’s contrast between noble and slave values enlightening: compassion and the imperative to relieve suffering are very distinctive of slave morality; of course Thor is driven by honor and duty – and respect for those he regards as his peers (if not his equals), including the human Avengers. Respect involves being aware of someone’s feelings, taking them into account, but also holding the person to the standards you accept for yourself – which explains why Thor flips out on Tony about the Ultron situation.

Finally: as you know, because I’ve said it a lot, I don’t think the version of Thor we see in Ragnarok, whom I call Thor* to mark the difference, is the same character as the Thor we see in Thor 1 through Age of Ultron. For that reason I think it’s misleading to try to track a development through Ragnarok and (to a lesser extent) Infinity War. It would be like trying to draw conclusions about the character of Thomas Jefferson from his depictions in 1776 and Hamilton (for the musical nerds out there…). The fact that different writers are involved isn’t necessarily prohibitive, because comics series can go through a number of different writers without losing continuity; it’s about whether the new writer respects the characterization that has been developed by previous writers and builds on it in a psychologically realistic way.

squeeful:

one-piece-of-harry:

stefanidoesstuff:

one-piece-of-harry:

I really hate raining on people’s fun so just ignore me but I really don’t like how people have made Thor this massive feminist based on that one scene in ragnarok because to me it was so painfully obvious that Thor was just saying the things he thought Valkyrie would want to hear/backtracking from having blurted out “until I found out you were all women” and, like, Valkyrie rolled her eyes for a reason because men being apathetic to feminist issues until they’re trying to persuade a woman/charm a woman is such a cliché and so is overcorrecting for a perceived sexist slight like??? I’m just so angry that Thor is the face for feminism when marvel continues to create and discard female characters as fast as they can make them and?? We’re not saying anything about it?? What the fuck happened to Jane foster? She was a goddamn genius and this same fandom CELEBRATED when they kicked her from the narrative and called that “feminist” god

It is the exact opposite of feminist to celebrate when a female character is ejected from a story. The Marvel fandom celebrated for one reason: it hates women, full stop.

“it made sure we wouldn’t have a forced heterosexual romance!” like… bitch. If the only way you can rationalize not having sexist tropes in a het romance is to…straight up get rid of the women then y’all ain’t feminist and it’s exhausting

jane foster and thor were the least forced romance but sure, let’s celebrate when marvel is shit to their actresses as well as their characters

can someone explain this plothole: loki tells the revengers that hes run out of favor with the grandmaster and in exchange for a ship, he wants passage through the devils anus. Then thor tells him in the elevator that this is a perfect place for you, lawless yada yadh and both agree that he should stay (even though 2 seconds ago he told thor he’s run out of favor with the grandmaster) did loki betray thor last minute so he can stay on Sakaar like Thor wants him to? did thor not even hear him

juliabohemian:

shine-of-asgard:

edge-of-silvermoon:

lokihiddleston:

.

They need Loki to betray Thor for no reason so they can stomp on Loki’s character harder, and give Thor a chance for grandstanding, what else is there to it? This betrayal literally serves no other purpose than give Thor the chance to deliver his “you can be more” lectures. It’s lazy and sloppy writing.

Waititi and Hemsworth wanted a scene of Thor triumphing over Loki as a “payback” for 3 movies or Loki outsmarting him, and they wrote… that. Whatever the hell it was. And it’s been proven that it was a last minute addition because the official novel doesn’t have this last “twist”. Loki leaves with everyone, willingly.

Could we just re-shoot the movie and have it like the novel? So it isn’t this ridiculous mess? Like did no one edit this film besides TW? Did anyone check for consistency or to be sure that it made sense? How does something make it all the way to the theater with that many mistakes?

This thread is missing the original answer, which was a screenshot of another anonymous ask:

“It’s not really a plothole. Loki has only fallen out of favor with the Grandmaster because he did not return with Thor and his champion as promised. But Thor/Valkyrie are staging a revolt with Korg. So once the Grandmaster is out of power, Thor knows Loki could take over. However, Loki decides that he could regain favor with the Grandmaster by giving him Thor and then probably Bruce. I think though that Loki partially chose this route because he honestly didn’t think that Thor stood a chance against Hela […] I think at least partially, Loki is trying to keep his brother alive.”

There is something to that… but I still think @edge-of-silvermoon and @shine-of-asgard​ hit the nail on the head. Not only were Loki’s last-minute betrayal and Thor*’s (this is not the same person as the Thor of previous films) ultimatum/electrocution combo not in the novel (which I haven’t read), but we have some indication from the trailers that they shot a version where Loki came in the small ship with the rest of the Revengers: the clips of him standing on the bridge in a row with Thor, Valkyrie, and Hulk, and that shot of Hulk punching him off the bridge like he did to Thor in The Avengers. The betrayal and subsequent smackdown were a later addition – probably by Waititi rather than the screenwriter (Eric Pearson), possibly at Hemsworth’s behest – and I suspect that they wanted three things out of it:

  1. To show Thor*’s “character growth”: he has learned not to fall for Loki*’s tricks and illusions anymore (I’m using Loki* because the motivation for the betrayal, which I still think is basically “shits and giggles,” is not in keeping with Loki’s established character).
  2. The famous “trickster tricked” narrative trope. That’s fine in and of itself; we saw it in The Avengers when Black Widow successfully pulls her “wounded gazelle” act on Loki and again when Hawkeye shoots an arrow at Loki, Loki catches it, and then the arrow explodes. We also saw it in TDW when Thor handcuffed Loki and then pushed him out of the Dark Elf ship onto the skiff. This version, however, is undermotivated and unnecessarily cruel, and I really do think the purpose was to assert Thor*’s superiority over Loki. It also gives us the completely unintended irony of Thor*, who has reverted to a cruelty and arrogance worse than that he was humbled for in Thor 1, lecturing to Loki, who has evolved quite a bit over the past 3 films, about the need for “growth and change.”
  3. As @endiness​ argued a while back: “i do legitimately believe that loki’s character was regressed in order to make thor responsible for loki’s character growth (rather than loki himself) to kind of prop thor up and have him come off as the better character […] loki’s character had to start out in ragnarok regressed (and far beyond where he was at the end of tdw) and passive, stay that way for most of the movie as most of his actions were dictated by other characters, and then only ‘change’ after and because thor prompted him to through reverse psychology.”

foundlingmother:

iamanartichoke:

lokiloveforever:

shaylogic:

Hey can we start some discourse on how there’s 2 halves of the loki fandom:

1. straight girls that wanna fuck loki

2. queer/mentally ill people that relate to loki

and how the first group tends to like Avengers 2012 Loki the most and prize his predatoriness and exotify his jotun heritage and don’t want him to heal as a person but want to keep him as a fucked up serial killer because that’s “hot”

and the second group was really excited when Ragnarok finally brought out the queerness that’s been so classic to the myths and comics that we’ve all been waiting for, plus thor got the character boost he needed and the whole thing was fun and the bros finally reconciled and loki healed and grew as a slightly more emotionally stable person

and then the first group of fans got pissy about this and were saying how marvel fucked up loki’s character and he should be going around wacking people with his staff and being intimidating rather than vulnerable and emotionally reaching out, and how they think thor was too overbearing or even abusive and that he was taking loki’s spotlight even though he’s the main character, and were maybe also angry that there was queerness beyond what they could objectify for slash

like it’s just occurred to me today that all the sudden tension in the fandom is coming from the straight girls getting upset that the Bad Boy Facade Loki they stanned over turned out to show his canon of being an emotionally vulnerable and traditionally queer character just trying to survive and find emotional/psychological fulfillment under his egotistical front, and they can’t deal with the fact that’s been his character all along

I’m not wording this well right now but yeah go off please

I’m a straight woman and I love Loki, not “just” because I want to fuck him, even though, yes, I find him extremely attractive. I have two seeing, working eyeballs in my head, so you can’t hold that against me. You’re saying straight women cannot relate to Loki because we just want to fuck him? So I can’t relate to him at all, you’re saying I have no idea what it feels like to be abandoned, out of place, misunderstood, unloved and antagonized? You don’t know, that’s what drew me to Loki in the first place.
Loki was always vulnerable, if you’ll care to pay attention to the movies. It was Loki in the first Thor that drew me to him that vulnerability, that realization that his life was a lie, that intense desire to be loved to the point that he was willing to kill or be killed for it, for his family, that was something I felt I could relate to. He’s always been trying to reach out!
What attracted to me to Loki when he was “a fucked up serial killer” was that he really wasn’t “a fucked up serial killer” at all, and people tend to choose to ignore that. If you pay close attention to the movies, you’ll find the details of what was really going on with Loki (exhaustion, torture, manipulation, mind-warping, on top of the emotional and mental trauma that he had already suffered in the first Thor).
And what makes me so pissy about Ragnarok was the way all of that desire and pain, what Tom Hiddleston has reffered to as “his closely guarded suitcase of pain” was wrenched away from him and opened up and put on a very disrespectful display, literally. You think I don’t want to see him be healed? I just want him “to run around whacking people with his stick”? I want him to be healed more than anything but what happened in Ragnarok wasn’t healing. It was parody and mockery. They simplified him in the crudest way. Robbed him of his magic, his aura and his mystery, and left a shell. They tore down everything that Tom Hiddleston devoted 10 years of his life to create. And, surprise, look what happened next – they got rid of him!

I never saw Loki as “just a hot bad boy”. I see the most beautifully crafted character full of passion and heart, expressing a desire to love and be accepted, and I don’t know a single person, gay or straight, who can’t relate to that. And if you say you can’t you’re lying.

You could say Loki belongs to those who truly love him, and let others alone to love him too, instead of just trying to pit gay and straight against each other, to satisfy some idiotic assumption.

I don’t think this is true at all. I don’t know what most people’s sexualities are and it makes no difference to me but my dash is full of wonderful discourse, critical thinking, analysis, and appreciation of Loki for his whole character, not what he looks like. His looks don’t hurt, fair enough. But regardless, probably this is all coming from straight people, LGBT people, whoever – it shouldn’t matter. 

Secondly, I have always identified as straight, and I have also struggled with mental illness for the better portion of my adult life (and I’m getting up there). I don’t particularly want to fuck Loki, but that’s beside the point. I relate to Loki most in his earlier movies – his mental illness, his role in being the less favored brother, being ignored, slighted, constantly compared to a standard and expectation he couldn’t possibly ever meet just because of who he was. And then to find out that he was a member of the race he’d grown up hearing were monsters and things, to find out his place in Asgard was not what he thought it was, to have been lied to, his identity stripped away. These are all very real struggles that a LOT of people can relate to. These are the factors that drew in so many Loki fans and filled the room at 2013 Comic Con.

I appreciate Ragnarok Loki. I liked seeing another side to his character and the movie is enjoyable if you don’t think too deeply about it. But.

and then the first group of fans got pissy about this and were saying how marvel fucked up loki’s character and he should be going around wacking people with his staff and being intimidating rather than vulnerable and emotionally reaching out … 

If your perception of Thor 1, Avengers, and TDW Loki is that he was an intimidating villain who whacked people with his staff, I suggest a rewatch. I highly encourage, in particular, Loki’s confrontation with Odin in the Vault when he discovers the truth, and the way he cries when he’s fighting Thor in the end. In Avengers, may I direct you to the fact that he is crying when he stabs Thor on top of Stark Tower. There’s also quite the interesting conversation with the Other that very heavily implies Loki has very little of his own free will. In TDW, you may be interested in the way he falls apart when Frigga dies, the way he tries to smile and it immediately crumples just after he and Thor argue on their boat, the part where he literally shoves Jane out of the way of an exploding bomb even though he’s only just met her and upon meeting him, she slapped him in the face.

Just as a place to start.

I’m not saying the intimidating scepter-swinger isn’t accurate. But it’s a VERY small part of who he is. The great thing about Loki is that he’s so layered and complex. Ragnarok has given him some distance from the previous movies’ events and it seems that, in that distance, he’s sort of come to terms (how he got to that place on his own is anyone’s guess). The point is, we get to see him feeling a little more light, a little more funny, a little more God of Mischief-y. This is yet just another aspect of who he is. If you like that version of Loki better, that’s fine. No one’s stopping you. 

But you shouldn’t put people into boxes and simplify their criticisms. It’s really not fair.

I am queer. My gender is a question mark. I don’t wish to fuck anyone, let alone Loki, because I’m aromatic and asexual. I’m neurodivergent with both autism and numerous mental health problems.

I identify with Loki for his queerness and mental health issues, and I dislike Ragnarok because I feel the movie is ableist af (the post I’m linking to does a fantastic job “summarizing” what makes me uncomfortable), and that it drains Loki of his depth that was canon in the previous films, not absent from them. I don’t think his queer-coding in Ragnarok is very good. The subtextual relationship we’re shown is one full of consent issues. It’s a sugar daddy/sugar baby deal where the “sugar” is survival. That’s not exactly the sort of pseudo-representation (it’s pseudo since it’s not explicit) that I was hoping for, and it’s even more frustrating considering they cut the scene that would have made Val’s bisexuality explicit.

I know lots of people who are queer and/or don’t want to fuck Loki who dislike at least aspects of his portrayal in Ragnarok, if not the entire movie. @philosopherking1887, @lucianalight, and @imaginetrilobites to name three off the top of my head. Like @iamanartichoke said, don’t put people in boxes. The divide is far from neat and tidy, and your assessment of the straight Loki fans isn’t even uniformly accurate, either. It’s wonderful if you enjoy the movie. Go nuts! Love what you love! But please don’t do this sort of generalizing that’s sort of a subtle way of invalidating the opinions of people who don’t have a fondness for the movie… 

Also, Thor didn’t need a character boost. He’s much better and sweeter and funnier and Thor-like pre-Ragnarok. The only exception is the lightning. I’ll admit Ragnarok did some badass shit with his lightning powers. I enjoy it a lot. Yes I do.

I appreciate @iamanartichoke‘s summary of the instances of emotional vulnerability and complexity in the pre-Ragnarok films; I myself have spent some time (such as at the bottom of this ridiculous thread) trying to dispel the absurd notion that Loki was a one-dimensional “mustache-twirling villain” or (in OP’s words) “fucked-up serial killer” and only became an “interesting, conflicted trickster” in Ragnarok. But I disagree with the concession that “Ragnarok has given him some distance from the previous movies’ events and it seems that, in that distance, he’s sort of come to terms.” The following parenthetical – “how he got to that place on his own is anyone’s guess” – is extremely telling, and I think the answer is simply that Taika Waititi doesn’t want us to believe that Loki’s problems were ever real. On that point, read the excellent post that @foundlingmother linked to. I’ve written on that topic myself, but never with quite that much force and pathos.

Taika either doesn’t recognize that Loki is mentally ill, or he simply has no sympathy for it. He ignores all of Loki’s complicated motivations for his previous betrayals and effectively says he just does it because it’s “in his nature” as “the God of Mischief” – i.e., “for the lulz.” And he can’t be said to reach any kind of genuine reconciliation with Thor because Thor* (the version of Thor portrayed in Ragnarok) takes the same approach to Loki that Taika does: he never asks Loki for his reasons for doing anything he did, including faking his death and impersonating Odin; he just gives that pompous, hypocritical speech about how he could be “more than just the God of Mischief.” I have written about this so many times, as have various other people… I should just bookmark all of those posts because I end up having to link to them so often to avoid having to rehash all of the arguments again.

OP’s understanding of the fandom divide is so completely wrongheaded it’s mind-boggling. Many of the Loki fans who loved Loki pre-Ragnarok and think Ragnarok made hash of his character – myself included – are mentally ill. They are people who came to identify with Loki because they saw themselves in him: because he was an outsider who never seemed to fit in with Asgardian society, because he was bullied for being different (subtly, yes, and maybe he even deserved some of it, but still: see the end of this thread for an argument to that effect), because he attempted suicide onscreen – and if that’s not a clear indicator that a character is mentally ill, I don’t know what is. And it’s equally absurd to say that we, the mentally ill people who identify with Loki, don’t want to see him heal and be happy. Of course we do. But we want to see it happen realistically, the way mentally ill people actually can recover: by confronting their issues rather than burying them or running away from them; by talking frankly about the things that have been bothering them with people who matter to them. That never happens in Thor: Ragnarok. A full acknowledgment of the depth and reality of Loki’s problems would involve an earnest conversation with Thor about the ways in which Loki felt slighted, inferior, taken for granted throughout their youth; about the impact of the revelation that he was Jotun and that their parents had lied to him about it his whole life; about why he did the terrible things he did in Thor and The Avengers, why he pretended to be dead and banished Odin at the end of TDW. Wanting Loki’s very real problems to be addressed instead of swept under the rug IS “wanting him to heal as a person.” As a person, not the way Thor* treats him in Ragnarok: as a problem to be solved.

Also, what the hell do you mean by “exotify his jotun heritage”? Some of us just want to see it talked about. Or even humanized, which is the exact opposite of what you seem to be implying. Loki apparently outs himself as a Jotun adoptee in that play (the “blue baby icicle” bit), no one bats an eye, and that’s the last we hear of it. WTF? What happened to the part where Asgardians consider Jotnar such monsters that young Thor wanted to “hunt them down and slay them all,” and Odin felt like he needed to lie to his son about his race to “protect him from the truth”? Zack Stentz (one of the writers of Thor) has said outright that Loki’s story is about internalized racism. Can we learn a little more about Jotnar and start to see them as people? Can we actually see Loki come to terms with his heritage by learning about it instead of, again, just writing it off with a joke?

And while we’re talking about how ridiculous this account of the fandom divide is, let’s discuss the fact that Ragnarok is not exactly a triumph for queer representation. Loki is never explicitly identified as queer; it’s all through stereotype and innuendo. I’m quoting from @fuckyeahrichardiii because she brought it to my attention and I really can’t put it any better:

I also have no idea why the movie hasn’t been savaged by tumblr for its frankly awful queer-baiting. We’ve got a regressive case of textbook villainous queer-“coding” (though it’s barely even coded) with the GM, who despite everyone’s obsession with JG, is a really vile person (imperialist, slaver), and the FIRST almost open depiction of same-sex relations in the MCU (Loki/GM) is characterized by suggestions of frankly horrific power dynamics. Like, really Taika?

(2) And Valkyrie being bi was barely a whisper in the movie compared to the joke that was the GM’s sexuality. Even so, Taika had the tired trope of the dead lesbian in operation as part of Val’s backstory which honestly gets him 0 credit as far as I’m concerned.

Here, while we’re at it, is a long post about the queer-coding of villains and the Hollywood tradition of “the sissy.” I’m finding it extremely ironic that this is being held up as “queerness beyond what they could objectify for slash.” Seriously? This fucked-up sugar daddy/baby relationship that can hardly be considered consensual, under the circumstances? You think the critics’ problem with it is that it’s too queer to objectify?

I strongly suspect that this attempt to write off critics of Ragnarok, and specifically its portrayal of Loki, as just “stupid, homophobic, neurotypical straight girls who want to fuck their fetishized version of Loki” is an evasive maneuver to avoid thinking and talking seriously about the content of the films. Why engage with your opponents’ arguments and analyses when you can score some oppression/social justice points by lumping them all into a privileged group and calling them bigots?

ms-cellanies:

catwinchester:

cosmicjoke:

littlefanthing:

cosmicjoke:

One of the lines in “Thor: The Dark World” that gets overlooked, I think (possibly because Marvel cut it from the final edit) was when Thor is talking to Frigga about Loki, and she says to him that he and Odin always shone so brightly, it was hard for Loki to find any sun for himself, or something to that effect.

Anyway, this is such a massively important line, because it basically tells us EVERYTHING about Loki’s childhood, and how he felt.  And here again is yet another example of how absolutely WRONG Taika Waitit’s view of these characters was, given what I heard about him wanting to include a flashback in Ragnarok showing Thor as a sensitive and bullied child, and Loki as dark and mean.  That would have been in DIRECT conflict with everything we know about these characters, just like everything else in Ragnarok is.

From what Frigga says to Thor, it’s plain as day that Loki as a child was always struggling just to catch up to Thor, to try and be equal to him, not just in Odin’s and Frigga’s eyes, but in the eyes of probably the entire kingdom.  It tells us that Thor, as a boy, was as popular and well liked, as charming and charismatic and as easy to make friends as he is as an adult, and that Loki was very much the introvert, quiet, awkward and isolated.  And from Loki’s desperation to win Odin’s approval in the first Thor film, I think it becomes apparent that that desperation grew directly from his feeling inadequate and lesser to the standard of both his father and his big brother growing up.  And it’s just so unbelievably sad, to envision that.  To envision Loki constantly struggling, trying to match Thor, trying to make himself seem as good as Thor for Odin, trying to make himself seem like a “true and worthy son”, as he says in the first film.  How anyone could miss this about his character is beyond me, unless they’re being willfully obtuse.  

And we see from this one line, that Loki’s entire motivation is based on a feeling of lack on his own part.  He feels like he’s less.  He feels like he isn’t as good as Thor, and that Odin must not love him because he’s not as good as Thor, and until he discovers he’s a Jotun, he doesn’t know why, and he can’t figure it out, and he keeps trying and trying to do the right thing to somehow make him, in his father’s eyes, Thor’s equal.  Think of the kind of psychological effect that would have on a person, especially a young man growing up in the kind of culture Loki did.  Think of the burden of constantly feeling like there’s something WRONG with you, because you’re constantly measuring yourself against the perfection of an older sibling who everyone loves, while everyone treats you like you’re strange, and even are at times outwardly hostile and cruel to you.  Think of the weight of trying to figure out how to change yourself so that others will treat you like they treat your perfect older sibling, but not being able to, because you don’t really know what it is about you that makes everyone dislike or hate you in the first place.  And then think of what it must have been like, to discover you’re from a race of beings who the people you’ve grown up around consider to be monsters, who are those people’s mortal enemies, and coming to the swift and awful realization that that must have been it all along.  That THAT’S what was wrong with you.  That that’s why you’ve always been an outcast.

I just think that one moment from The Dark World was so important for understanding Loki’s character.

And yet, once again, Marvel proves it’s own stupidity by cutting it out.  Just like they cut out so many scenes from the first Thor film which showed Loki in a more sympathetic light.  Gee, it’s almost like they didn’t want people feeling for him.  Too bad they ended up doing so anyway.

Yeah, Taika is clearly biased against Loki, for whatever reason. Logic suggests that an anti-imperialist poc would identify with Loki’s character and his storyline, but Taika seems to have rejected him in favor of Thor. I can’t understand it at all. Can anyone think of a plausible explanation.

Well definitely Taika favors Thor, and what I think it really comes down to is, he favors Chris Hemsworth over Tom Hiddleston.  Tom is a total professional actor and he takes his craft seriously.  I don’t get that impression with Chris.  Chris seems to have more or less given up trying to be a serious actor, taking on one comedic role after another, probably because all his attempts at serious drama got panned by the critics.  And Chris has a goofy kind of personality with a goofy sense of humor, and for whatever reason, that appealed to Takia Waititi and they hit it off.  You get the definite impression that wasn’t the case with Tom.  Every interview with Tom done during Ragnarok’s promotion, he talks about how well Takia and Chris got along, and you just get the sense from it that Tom was very much the outsider to their little party.  Takia is also one of those directors that HAS to put himself in his own films, which smacks of a massive ego problem.  He isn’t satisfied with being behind the scenes.  He wants to be the star too.  Which tells me he doesn’t appreciate actors or understand what it takes to BE an actor.  He’s one of these people, it seems to me, that thinks anyone can do it.  But no, it takes a LOT of talent to be a good actor.  It’s an actual art.  I just don’t think Tom was able to relate at all to what seemed like the idiotic atmosphere on the set of Ragnarok, and I also get the sense that Taika Waititi aggressively shut Tom out of any collaboration regarding Loki’s character, for example Tom’s saying how he was trying to give Matt Daemon (Chris Hemsworth’s friend, by the way) lines that Loki would say, and Taika Waititi just kept telling him no, and giving his own lines, as if he knew better what Loki would say than Tom.   He basically steam rolled him.  Tom’s a sophisticated, very intelligent and high class man, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that irritated and intimidated a low class shill like Waititi.  

Tom’s a sophisticated, very intelligent and high class man, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that irritated and intimidated a low class shill like Waititi.   

I think you’re right. I also think it could be his background, He’s English and went to Eton (known as school of Kings for a reason).

A lot of people hate that. And I get why. A perfect example, there’s a show on BBC at the moment about Jeremy Thorpe trying to murder his gay lover, and he basically got away with it because the judge was an old Etonian, like Thorpe, and was incredibly biased in his favour, pretty much instructing the jury to find Thorpe not guilty. “The establishment” has historically protected its own, even from murder charges. 

Some people can’t see past that privilege to the individual. 

Never mind that Tom’s grandfather was a dockworker, oh no, if he went to Eton he’s got to be an evil establishment coloniser intent on keeping the working man down.

Reblogging for the latest comments, which I’m onboard with.  I think there’s another aspect at play in all this as well.  I’ve always seen the relationship between Thor/Loki as classic sibling rivalry…..anyone else remember the Smothers’ Brothers schtick of “Mom always loved you best?”  Thor’s the favored child in the THOR films but LOKI is the favored character by the fans and critics.  If you go back and watch all of the Chris/Tom interviews for Thor there isn’t a single one where Tom doesn’t deflect a question to sing the praises of Chris.  Never, that I’ve seen, has Tom put himself out there as the star, better actor or slighted Chris in any way.  I feel certain that CH, in the real world, feels that Tom has, so to speak, stolen his thunder.  Personally I put the tearing down of Loki in Ragnarok on the shoulders of both Taika & Chris.  Ragnarok was clearly The Assassination of Loki.

This last comment is exactly right. I suspect that Taika and maybe also Chris assume that Tom thinks he’s better than them because he’s educated, cultured, and classically trained. He *is* better than them: he’s kinder, more empathetic, a better actor with a better understanding of human psychology and dramatic narrative, and 100% less narcissistic. But he doesn’t know that and he would never act like he thinks he’s better than anyone.

I want to emphasize that the important sense in which Waititi and Hemsworth are “low class” has nothing to do with money or genealogy. It’s entirely about mindset. They lack “class” in the normative sense. They are low class in the same way as the Trumps (though to a lesser extent, of course). You can be in the highest echelons of society and still regard everything as a competition with you (and maybe your buddies) against the world that you must win at all costs.

trickster-grrrl:

cosmicjoke:

One of the lines in “Thor: The Dark World” that gets overlooked, I think (possibly because Marvel cut it from the final edit) was when Thor is talking to Frigga about Loki, and she says to him that he and Odin always shone so brightly, it was hard for Loki to find any sun for himself, or something to that effect.

Anyway, this is such a massively important line, because it basically tells us EVERYTHING about Loki’s childhood, and how he felt.  And here again is yet another example of how absolutely WRONG Taika Waitit’s view of these characters was, given what I heard about him wanting to include a flashback in Ragnarok showing Thor as a sensitive and bullied child, and Loki as dark and mean.  That would have been in DIRECT conflict with everything we know about these characters, just like everything else in Ragnarok is.

From what Frigga says to Thor, it’s plain as day that Loki as a child was always struggling just to catch up to Thor, to try and be equal to him, not just in Odin’s and Frigga’s eyes, but in the eyes of probably the entire kingdom.  It tells us that Thor, as a boy, was as popular and well liked, as charming and charismatic and as easy to make friends as he is as an adult, and that Loki was very much the introvert, quiet, awkward and isolated.  And from Loki’s desperation to win Odin’s approval in the first Thor film, I think it becomes apparent that that desperation grew directly from his feeling inadequate and lesser to the standard of both his father and his big brother growing up.  And it’s just so unbelievably sad, to envision that.  To envision Loki constantly struggling, trying to match Thor, trying to make himself seem as good as Thor for Odin, trying to make himself seem like a “true and worthy son”, as he says in the first film.  How anyone could miss this about his character is beyond me, unless they’re being willfully obtuse.  

And we see from this one line, that Loki’s entire motivation is based on a feeling of lack on his own part.  He feels like he’s less.  He feels like he isn’t as good as Thor, and that Odin must not love him because he’s not as good as Thor, and until he discovers he’s a Jotun, he doesn’t know why, and he can’t figure it out, and he keeps trying and trying to do the right thing to somehow make him, in his father’s eyes, Thor’s equal.  Think of the kind of psychological effect that would have on a person, especially a young man growing up in the kind of culture Loki did.  Think of the burden of constantly feeling like there’s something WRONG with you, because you’re constantly measuring yourself against the perfection of an older sibling who everyone loves, while everyone treats you like you’re strange, and even are at times outwardly hostile and cruel to you.  Think of the weight of trying to figure out how to change yourself so that others will treat you like they treat your perfect older sibling, but not being able to, because you don’t really know what it is about you that makes everyone dislike or hate you in the first place.  And then think of what it must have been like, to discover you’re from a race of beings who the people you’ve grown up around consider to be monsters, who are those people’s mortal enemies, and coming to the swift and awful realization that that must have been it all along.  That THAT’S what was wrong with you.  That that’s why you’ve always been an outcast.

I just think that one moment from The Dark World was so important for understanding Loki’s character.

And yet, once again, Marvel proves it’s own stupidity by cutting it out.  Just like they cut out so many scenes from the first Thor film which showed Loki in a more sympathetic light.  Gee, it’s almost like they didn’t want people feeling for him.  Too bad they ended up doing so anyway.

WAITITI WANTED TO SHOW THOR AS BULLIED BY LOKI WHAT?!?!?!

Because he thinks the only way to make a hero likable and relatable is to show them as an awkward outsider. And since Thor is the hero… But of course this completely ignores/denies the “high brought low”/ “humble the proud” storyline of the first “Thor” movie.

Taika was not interested in “respectfully disrespecting” the previous movies; he just didn’t give a shit. And has no storytelling or character range, apparently.

juliabohemian:

lokiloveforever:

So Marvel is saying Using Loki’s death as revenge motivation for Thor. Wasn’t the story going that Loki had been tortured and tormented by Thanos into attacking New York, and the fact that this was done to his brother couldn’t have been enough motivation for Thor? No, they had to just brutally kill him off and get him out of the picture because they’re at a loss as to what to do with him. Those brilliant minds at Marvel.

That awkward moment when your character has more class than your entire franchise and you need to dispose of him to make everything else look good.

But first they needed to make an entire movie devoted to stripping him of all the class, dignity, and pathos he had previously possessed.

They shouldn’t have pissed off Joss Whedon. He knew how to make all the central characters, including Loki, interesting in their own ways without any of them completely eclipsing any other. Markus & McFeely and the Russos are too clumsy to do that balancing act. Tony ended up being more compelling and sympathetic than Cap in what was officially a Cap movie, but the creators seem not to be aware of that.

juliabohemian:

whitedaydream:

TW’s interesting recreation of Loki’s “death” in Svartalfheim and Loki’s “betrayal” in Sakaar

(There are more than 90% similarities between the novel version and the film version when it comes to Thor 1 & Thor: The Dark World. So I feel it’s safe to say Thor: Ragnarok novel reflects the original movie script before Waititi’s 80% improvisation.) 

In Thor: Ragnarok novel Thor’s first reaction to “Odin” changing back to Loki –

Thor: “How did you escape Death?”

Loki: “By evading its grasp in the first place, of course.”

Thor: “Only you would make a mockery of your own sacrifice.”

This Thor knew for sure his brother risked his own life to save him from the dark elves. He understood Loki’s play as more of self-mockery rather than self-delusion or narcissism (which would get his ideas across to the audience). And Thor didn’t blame Loki for anything except usurping the throne and blinding Odin’s mind.

Later in Sakaar when Loki helped them to escape, he told Thor he wanted to make up for his mistake –

Thor: “You’ll help us free Asgard from Hela’s grip when we arrive? I can count on you?”

Loki: “Of course. After all, I’m sure you blame me for her resurgence. It’s at least I can do.”

Then Thor admitted his own fault to Loki: “I should not have refused the throne when Asgard needed me most” and “Our self-centered conflict over Asgard has ruined our kingdom” and –

Thor: “I want to change. I want to be better. And I think you can, too. Helping us escape has shown you can take strides toward that.” He looked at Loki earnestly. “Make a fresh start, brother. It’s time.”

And Loki didn’t make an inexplicable “betrayal” later in the novel. The four of them came back to Asgard together, followed by the rebels’ big ship. (And the novel ends here.)

As a comparison, Thor’s reaction at the first sight of Loki in Thor: Gagnarok film – “Where’s Odin? Did you kill him?” Then “You faked your own death! You stripped Odin of his power! You left him to die and releasing Hela! And let’s go back than the past 2 days! Blah Blah Blah!” Then “Our path diverged long time ago” and “Life is about growth and change but you stayed the same”. – This guy pushed all the responsibility and blame to his adopted brother.

Gagnarok Thor, look at yourself first.

By the way, in the novel Thor treats Valkyrie, Hulk and Banner sincerely and kindly. None of these bullshits↓ exist.

#although waititi confessed to respectfully disrespect the early thor films #i mean no respectful disrespect to him

I think Taika’s narcissism shined through in his direction of the character of Thor. Because here Thor comes off as an uncaring asshole and not the sensitive guy we knew from previous films.

Does this mean I have to read the novel version…?

It definitely means I can place the blame for that characterization disaster squarely on Waititi (and Hemsworth!) and I don’t have to bring Eric Pearson (the screenwriter) into it. (Meanwhile, over at “Infinity War,” Markus & McFeely deserve *at least* as much blame as the Russos.)