Tag: thor ragnarok meta

darklittlestories:

pinknoonicorn:

maneth985:

darklittlestories:

incredifishface:

darklittlestories:

More Ragnarok Meta

SPOILERS, obviously.

So, the snake & stab story. Obviously I LIVE for snakes. So I was delighted that Loki shifting SOLIDLY*, into a snake.

And the giggle at mischievous young Loki (I mean, warrior culture? Sibling rivalries involve stabbings, right? lol)

But… BUT: “We were eight.” (I can’t confirm yet that this line wasn’t ‘He was eight’… anyone?)

But I think I heard “We.” Proceeding from there:

This means that Thor & Loki are the same age. Or within a year. That’s a HUGE character revelation. Imagine Loki’s resentment, all the stuff we know, but go back to when we first saw them on screen.

Two young princes, led by their Father-King. “But only one of you will rule.” And by now Loki has (canonically) already at least a seed of malice planted within.

He’s a mage, and a damn fine one to be shapeshifting so young, I’d wager. We know the parallel to Viking culture’s treatment of men perceived as *argr* or *ergi* tracks. We’ve seen Thor and friends mock him for his “tricks.”

So he’s aware of his difference from those warriors. He already feels judged less-than.

But now imagine that a spare few months are all that separates him from—and places him second in ascension order—Thor. How much more acute does that resentment read now?

My heart stings with yet *another* layer of damage to that psyche.

There’s a wealth of characterization to unpack, which is a very pleasant surprise for such a hilarious film, but right now I’m fixated on this narrow perceived-age difference. (Of course we likely will never know if Loki is any younger at all, or if the Jotunn even age analogously to Áesir.)

Somehow for me, knowing they’re closer in age adds so much depth to Loki’s resentment.

And of course their reunion that much sweeter.

Did you hear a ‘we’? Thoughts?

@philosopherking1887

@raven-brings-light

@incredifishface

@lunariagold

@fourletterwordsstartingwithl

@sexualthorientation

@writernotwaiting

*Not an illusion. So many new powers. I’m obsessed. Another post;)

I have to see it again and get back to you on that “we”

HOWEVER

this is one of those times when i am pretty reluctant to take the canon MCU line as it comes. Why? We know there was a lot of improvisation in that film. I seriously doubt there was as much thought put into every word of that snippet of dialogue as we put into our own headcanons. I simply refuse to change my entire headcanon or reassess fanon on the basis of that.

It doesn’t change that much for me either way. We know they’re close in age (see “both born to be kings” scene, similar heights), we don’t know enough about Asgardian/Jotun biology to make a final call on how they develop as kids (for beings that live up to 5000 years “8″ sounds like such a puzzlingly insignificant number), and I think considering these kids are about 1000 years old, and that for all but, like, 5 years or so, they were brothers, allies, lovers, and friends, give or take a stabbing or two, it does not seem a huge turning point in what we know. Even if they had been born months apart, we know Loki resents and loves his brother either way, that his dad favoured his brother either way, etc. 

Loki looks up to Thor like one looks up to an older brother, I think. That’s how I’ ve read and perceived the relationship to be at all times. So, they could have been born on the same day, and that wouldn’t change how Loki looks at Thor and relates to Thor: admiring him, worshipping him, thirsting for him like whoa, wanting to prove himself to him and be on a par with him, and outgrow him. That screams “little brother” to me. Be it age or just, you know, attitude, Thor will always be the older brother to me, and Loki the younger.  And I’m fine with that. 

Oh yeah, I’m not suggesting a retcon of old work of films, but for some reason that just stabbed me in my heart. (Stabbed—eheheheh)

I don’t know why it stood out to me so much. (It might just be because I LOVE AUs where they’re twins.)

But yeah the dynamic is absolutely still big brother/little brother. That’s so evident in this film, and obviously the others.

Very good observation about the improvisation in the movie, though. You’re right—it could be just a throwaway line.

I’m having *such feels* about it I’m sure it’ll inform my stories, but we’re all pretty solidly steeped in little brother psychology for Loki. I’m just gonna be processing shit from the movie for a while:D (Going to see it again later—w00t!)

I don’t take the “we were eight” line at heart, cause for all we know it could’ve been for brevity sake and keep it simple….he could’ve said"when we were little" tho.

I don’t think they have the same age (Loki is, as far as I know, canonically about 1048 yrs old in the first Thor film, btw), but they could be one or two years old apart, which for them is nothing. Their dynamic from day one has always been little brother Loki and big brother Thor, hell at times it seems to be Tom and Chris’s dynamics too which is funny cause Tom’s two years older.

What it did make me realise is how unimportant Loki stabbing and generally beating on Thor is in Avengers, and vice versa, this is how they are with each other. The only time Thor knew Loki wasn’t messing was when he sent the Destroyer to kill him and his friends. In the Avengers it’s a distraction, a way of getting Thor to stop and let him go, it’s not to kill. Same with the perceived “torture” scene in Ragnarok, sorry but Loki stood by while the disc was used on Thor, it wouldn’t have done that much injury to Loki and Thor had had enough. It’s the human equivalent of siblings pushing and shoving, and generally being brats. @incredifishface you won’t see this otherwise, stories will. I think the thing this film did really well, and almost certainly because the actors had so much input, was put everything we’d seen in the previous two films plus the avengers, into perspective. It gave us a foundation we never had. I loved it btw. One thing it did, surprisingly, is make me start to see thor and loki as they are, brothers…but that, and the small amount of fanfic I read atm, is a discussion for another time..

Yeah, ughhh the amount of (platonic? Who here even cares? lol) brotherly feels here DEFINITELY surpasses the previous movies. It’s the best BY FAR in my opinion, actually.

But much more importantly, INFORMATION!!!

How do y’all know Loki’s exact age in the MCU!??? Feed me knowledges!!! I’m thrilled to be proven wrong and with the improv argument I’m already starting to let go of my pangs of “omgggg SAME AGE BBYS!!!!! feels.” 😉

I think we still have license to play it any number of ways. Some people can run with the idea that they were raised as twins: that that’s the way Odin and Frigga explained away the fact that Frigga was never pregnant with Loki (which, as @raven-brings-light has remarked, is an unaddressed issue); that Loki has been doubly wronged because he’s actually a few days older than Thor, but Odin and Frigga called Thor the firstborn because they wanted their biological son to inherit; that part of Loki’s resentment was knowing that it was only a few minutes’ age difference that denied him the throne.

But people who prefer to write Loki as a few years younger than Thor to explain and accentuate the big brother/little brother dynamic between them can still do that too. There’s the fact that there was a lot of improvisation going on. And then there’s also the possibility that Thor just said “8″ as a rough human equivalent to give Bruce an idea of their developmental stage. It may be that Asgardians spend a few years at the equivalent of each year of human childhood, so Thor and Loki were both within the range that roughly matches up to 8 human years, but Thor was at the older end of that range and Loki at the younger. There are ways they could have hidden the fact that Frigga was never pregnant with Loki other than saying he and Thor were twins. A few people have speculated that Frigga lost a pregnancy around the same time, but hid that from the people and claimed that Loki was the product (maybe the miscarriage/stillbirth would have been Balder, and that would be an indirect way of representing myth-Loki’s involvement in Balder’s death). I may be the only one who thinks this, but the fact that it was wartime might have helped with the cover-up: it’s entirely possible that Frigga was in hiding somewhere in the countryside (such as it is) or in Vanaheim or something so that she would be safe in case of a Jotun invasion, so no one except her closest attendants would have known that she wasn’t pregnant before Loki showed up.

@darklittlestories – we know Loki’s exact age because there’s a date given as a subtitle/caption at the beginning of the prologue to the first Thor movie, when Odin is narrating the story of the Jotun invasion of Midgard and the Asgard’s intervention.

just because loki took the orgy ship to escape asgard doesn’t mean he didn’t still take it with him. like how else is thanos going to get his grubby hands on it? i’m betting that look took like every weapon he could while he was down there because that’s a loki thing to do

raven-brings-light:

Oh yeah I 100% still think Loki took the tesseract. Just maybe that’s not how he escaped Surtur’s big firestorm.

Also I won’t be surprised if the reason Thanos’s ship found them is BECAUSE Loki took the tesseract and Thanos was tracking it.

We know that Loki escaped in the orgy ship because we see it perched on the big ship toward the end. I only noticed that on the second viewing because I was looking for it, though.

I’m also 100% sure Loki took the Tesseract for two reasons, one story-internal and one external. The internal reason is that Loki knew Asgard was going to blow up and that when it did the Tesseract was just going to go flying off into space somewhere, which would be an incredible waste of an Infinity Stone as far as he was concerned. The external reason is Chekhov’s gun, basically: why did they make a point of showing Loki’s attention being attracted by the Tesseract if they weren’t going to do anything with that?

I also think that Thanos found them because of the Tesseract, because I think the Infinity Stones can find each other. I think Thanos found the Tesseract on Earth in the first place because he had the Mind Stone in the scepter. Now that he doesn’t have the Mind Stone anymore, I suspect that he was able to find the Space Stone because he has one of the others: either (A) he somehow got hold of the Aether (the Reality Stone) after the Collector’s stash was destroyed; (B) he has the Soul Stone (the only one we still haven’t seen); or © he has fucked up Xandar and gotten the Power Stone back from the Nova Corps, but we don’t know about it yet because, at least according to the MCU Wiki, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 took place in 2014, shortly after the first GOTG, so a lot of shit could have happened in the last 3 years.

An interpretive note about “Thor: Ragnarok”

philosopherking1887:

Spoilers!! under the cut.

Keep reading

@writernotwaiting replied:

Actually this is exactly what I thought–neither one of them looked at all worried that Loki wasn’t going to make it out alive; Thor just seemed to assume that Loki had buggered off somewhere else, and was frankly thrilled that he chose to stick with his brother, instead

You didn’t have the moment of “huh?” that I did before you arrived at this interpretation?

regarding “we were eight”

raven-brings-light:

I’ve often wondered how Odin and Frigga passed Loki off as their child when it had to have been obvious that Frigga wasn’t pregnant a second time. One option I’d idly entertained in the past was that Odin brought Loki back just as Frigga was giving birth to Thor and they’re like “WOOPS LOOKS LIKE IT WAS TWINS”…but they still called Thor the “firstborn” because one of the twins had to have been born first…and I bet Thor would really rub it in and call Loki his little brother all the time…and Loki would be gritting his teeth like “BY SEVEN MINUTES YOU OAF.”

Also, if that was true, the kind of ironic thing would be Loki may actually have been born first.

ANYWAY.

Pointless (probably wrong) speculation, brought to mind again by that bit of dialogue. 😀

An interpretive note about “Thor: Ragnarok”

Spoilers!! under the cut.

I’ve been seeing a lot of remarks, especially in post-Ragnarok hug fic, suggesting that Thor thought Loki was dead after Surtur destroyed Asgard. When I watched it the first time, I was confused and seriously bothered about why Thor didn’t wait to see whether Loki had gotten out before he, Valkyrie, and Hulk jumped onto the big ship. Before Hulk shows up again after fighting Fenris, Thor and Valkyrie are talking like they think this was a suicide mission: “At least our people have gotten to safety.” But when Loki takes the little ship to go dunk Surtur’s crown in the Eternal Flame, he doesn’t look or sound like he thinks he’s going on a suicide mission.

Probably more tellingly, the way they play the “I’m here” moment, it definitely seems like Thor is testing whether Loki is an illusion, not a hallucination. I mean, a hallucination might still have seemed to catch the bottle stopper – though maybe Thor would have heard the clunk of it hitting the door? But as a follow-up to earlier moments, it only makes sense if he’s testing to see whether it’s an illusion; and Thor’s reaction of relief is definitely more appropriate to “Loki didn’t fuck off by himself” than “Loki isn’t dead.” So I’m guessing we’re supposed to think that Thor was trusting Loki’s strong self-preservation instincts and assumed that Loki got out in the little ship (the Commodore?) and just went off somewhere to make his fortune on some other planet. He’s pleasantly surprised that Loki came back to help him take responsibility for the homeless Asgardian people, not that he survived.

Unfortunately, that was not made very clear in the movie, and I was hearing other people around me asking “What happened to Loki?” It would have been really disturbing that Thor didn’t seem to be worried unless he was just very confident that Loki would find a way out but wasn’t expecting him to come back for other reasons.

enchantedbyhiddles:

@erinthevampire
replied to your post “Question about the after credit scene of Thor: Ragnarok…[[MOR] The…”

NO>>I REFUSE TO LISTEN TO THIS

I take an ethic course this semester and we had an interesting first lesson about different schools of ethics.

Kantian ethics, that are prevalent in Europe, value intention most. A person is good, when they had good intentions and do something for the right reasons, even if the outcome is horrible.

Consequentialist ethics are prevalent in anglophile (especially US) countries. There the intentions don’t matter at all and only the outcome of an action determines if a person acted in an ethically good way or not.

Explains a lot why people might determine if a person (in this case Thor) is acting good or bad.

OK, I have a lot to say about the original meta post… but the upshot is that I strongly disagree. One of many reasons being that in the MCU, Thor is pretty consistently the representative of Kantian/deontological (i.e., rule-based) ethics, while Odin and Loki lean more consequentialist. (P.S., on Earth I see Steve and Tony representing a similar contrast.) I always read “I’d rather be a good man than a great king” as “I’d rather keep my conscience clean than have to make decisions that trade lives for more lives.”

Now, it may be that now that Thor has accepted the mantle of kingship, he’s converted to consequentialism. But handing Loki over to Thanos is the kind of move that’s standardly used as an argument against consequentialism (or specifically utilitarianism). If Thor encountered Thanos or even heard of him on his travels, he must know how ruthless and cruel he is. He would know, or should be able to guess, what kind of horrific torture he would be condemning Loki to. Is that worth it for the mere possibility of protecting Asgard and Earth? Why should he trust Thanos to keep, or even make, a promise to leave them alone if Loki is turned over to him?

thorkizilla:

Thor (2011) + Thor: Ragnarok (2017):

Thor: There won’t be a kingdom to protect if you’re afraid to act! The Jotuns must learn to fear me, just as they once feared you!
Odin: That’s pride and vanity talking, not leadership. You’ve forgotten everything I taught you about a warrior’s patience.
Thor: While you wait, and be patient, the Nine Realms laugh at us. The old ways are done! You’d stand giving speeches while Asgard falls!
Odin: You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!
Thor:  And you are an old man and a fool!
Odin: Yes, I was a fool to think you were ready. Thor Odinson, you have betrayed the express command of your king. Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful realms and innocent lives to the horror and desolation of war! You are unworthy of these realms! You’re unworthy of your title! You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed. I now take from you your power! In the name of my father and his father before, I, Odin Allfather, cast you out!

WHOEVER HOLDS THIS HAMMER, IF HE BE WORTHY, SHALL POSSESS THE HAMMER OF THOR.

Hela’s use of Mjolnir once upon a time lends a whole new context to what Thor’s arc over his movies + the Avengers movies already was–his story is one of an immensely powerful god who must either learn to wield it with care towards others or be lost to evil and violence and cruelty, not only himself but everyone else around him.  It lends an entirely new context to Odin’s reaction to Thor’s fight on Jotunheim and his words–words that must have been so much an echo of what Hela may have said once upon a time.

The realms must learn to fear her, just like her father.  That he only sits there now and is a fool not to bring the other Realms under the hell of Asgard.  And, just as he did with such a heavy heart, he had to cast her out, her violence and cruelty and vanity too much to bear.

Then again he must do the same with Thor.

Where Thor is different (and we do not know how many chances Odin gave Hela, though, she would not have wanted them or used them) is that he finds the strength to look around him when he’s pulled up short.  That he becomes worthy of the hammer, that he becomes the great man and great king that his people need him to be.

He rules without Mjolnir, because his power is not sourced to it, his power comes from the same place Hela’s does, it comes from within himself and his people, it’s on the same level as hears.  Thor is the redemption of Odin’s line, Thor is the inverse image of Hela and she of him.  Where her greed and cruelty only grew, his was erased and nobility grew in its place instead.

I love the ending of Thor: Ragnarok, that Thor may not want the throne, but it only makes him all the more suited to it.  That it’s the next step on the journey his story has taken over the course of these movies, that his people need him and he will sacrifice what needs to be, in order to lead them.  Not because he wants power or fame.  But because it’s right.  It’s finally right.

Thor doesn’t need Mjolnir to show that he is worthy in and of himself.  It was a beautiful weapon, it was more akin to a friend for all the years he had it with him. But it was still ultimately a weapon and Thor does not need it to remind himself to be a good man or a good ruler.  He just simply is.

I love how Loki is officially no longer the shittiest Odinkid. And, frankly, has one of the lower body-counts in the family now. XD

thorkizilla:

I’M LAUGHING BECAUSE IT’S TRUE.

Loki, I love you, boo, but you’re never going to be the worst anymore, sorry big sis has that covered.

I love this on a LOL level but I also love it in the sense that, while Loki will still have issues, it will give both him and Thor breathing room to realize things are not as bad as they could be.  Loki doesn’t have to feel like he has to live up to being this monster he’s painted up as how he thinks his family sees him, he can settle more into a middle of the road trickster type.

Thor has dealt with so much shit by this point, has lost so much and seen so much violence and evil from others, can look at Loki and not see him as the worst kind of betrayal ever, either.  He’s always wanted to believe in Loki, wishes he could trust him, but he’s come to a point where he recognizes who he himself has grown into, that he’s grown up a lot, he’s grown into more than he used to be, and if Loki comes along, Thor will be so glad to have him there, but if not, he knows that he has the strength to carry on.

Loki can realize, hey, he’s not the only one in a shitty situation, that it sucks when someone who should be your sibling just wrecks everything because they’re being an asshole, that he can understand much more of what Thor’s been through and what he’s going through.  That he wasn’t the only one who was lied to–yes, it gives Thor new understanding, but it also gives Loki new understanding, that he’s not the only one who’s been hurt.

I love it because they can always think of Hela and go, yeah, okay, we have our problems, but at least we’re not The Actual Worst Shittiest Odinkid as dark humor, but also that, yeah, it gives them both perspective that lets them grow. And that’s why I love the ending of the movie–maybe it’ll stick, maybe it won’t, but I wouldn’t have thought it possible with the road they were on before and yet!  Now I do.

I love it because, hey, don’t be a rerun of Hela, Loki.

Be something different, be something more.

thorkizilla:

ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT RAGNAROK:

“I am Thor, son of Odin.”

“Really?  You don’t look like him.”

It’s true, he doesn’t look that much like Odin, but it puts in mind the theme of family resemblance and, hey, look who does look like a family member:

But Loki and Hela aren’t related by blood, yet they look like.  Sure, sure, comic designs are being ported over to the MCU etc.  But you know what’s confirmed by this movie:

Shapeshifter Loki.

Odin, having had to seal Hela away before she caused too much damage, still thinking of her and the loss of her, his firstborn, and not too much later, this happens:

SHAPESHIFTER LOKI, EVEN AS A BABY, PICKING UP ON ODIN’S THOUGHTS OF HELA AND SHIFTING TO A FORM THAT RESEMBLED HER.

Picking up on just what exactly would allow him to survive, to be taken in and cared for, to be loved and protected.  And Odin, grieving over the loss of his firstborn, coming to love this child who looks so much like her, this new chance to do right with a child.

Ragnarok (and all of the Thor movies, really) is the story about how Thor is actually the redemption of Odin’s line, of course, that the terrible power both Hela and Thor wield is something they either do or don’t learn to do with compassion and good in their hearts.

But I love that this makes Loki just as important a part of the family as he can be. He has his mother’s magic, she would be proud of him, he is Odinson just as much as Thor is, Thor is closer to having his mother’s looks, Loki and Hela share looks, Thor and Hela share a power beyond almost anyone else we’ve seen, the web of connections and themes is everywhere and Loki is 100% fucking there with them all.