I just saw Ragnork for the 3rd time and this was all I could think of during the scene when Loki and Thor are in New York looking for Odin:
Presumably, Tony and the other Avengers are keeping an eye out for sightings of Thor and Hulk. Scanning the internet, news, social media etc for any sign that their friends are alive/back on earth. So imagine how confused they are when 1 selfie of Thor in casual clothes on a random New York street pops up on twitter with no explanation.
“If you were really here,” Thor says with a half-smile, “I’d hug you.”
He tossed the wine stopper at Loki, fully expecting it to sail right through. Instead, to his astonishment, Loki reached up and gracefully plucked the stopper out of the air.
He stared. Loki smiled.
“I’m here,” he said, and despite the deliberately casual air, there was something tentative about his voice.
Thor rose up and was halfway across the room in one motion. Loki didn’t meet him halfway – quite – but he took one tiny step forward and for Loki, that tiny step meant a lot. Thor engulfed him in a bear hug and, after a minute, Loki returned the embrace.
For a long moment they stood there, locked in the embrace, as Thor tried to come to grips with the fact that he hadn’t lost all of his family, after all.
Then – “Loki,” Thor said, shifting uncomfortably. The pinching sensation didn’t let up, and what he’d taken at first to be the buckles on Loki’s armor, ow. “Loki, are you stabbing me?!”
“Sorry,” Loki said, not removing his dagger from between Thor’s ribs. “Habit.”
Let that hair fly freely in the wind while you have it, Thor. MEANWHILE I love seeing the weather change with his mood, it’s still good :’)) Art blog: questionartbox [commissions] [ko-fi] [society6]
I completely agree with you, anon. It’s not that Loki is an innocent flower who doesn’t deserve such treatment. Or even that i blame Thor for taking out some of his anger on him. But the way it happened…yeah, it just felt out of character for Thor and it made me feel weird.
I guess we can comfort ourselves with the fact that Thor fully expected Loki to find his way out of the situation and come do the right thing (he just says “you’re late” when Loki shows up in Asgard, he’s not surprised at all to see him). Not saying that makes it all better. But he does, at least, show he’s still got some kind of faith in his brother, even if he shows it in an odd way.
Maybe it shows that Thor has become callous enough to rule? No longer so concerned about how the sacrifice and brutality changes you? I mean, I assumed he thought Loki would find a way to get himself out (though did he consider what would have happened if Topaz had been the first person to come along…?), but he didn’t know how long it would take for someone to come along and turn off the device. I got into an argument with someone who insisted it was fine because Thor had had the device used on him several times already. And I’m like, yeah, for a few seconds at a time. There’s something kind of different about letting someone undergo it for several minutescontinuously.
I’d like to think that Thor wasn’t completely certain Loki would show up – certain he would get himself out of the electrocution situation, yes, but not completely certain Loki would come back. Otherwise, it seems too much like his show of indifference was a matter of manipulating Loki into doing what he wanted rather than giving him a chance to redeem himself.
This is me, arriving late to the party, trying to sort through my conflicting feelings about this movie.
Things I loved:
Valkyrie. I literally have no complaints about her, she was just awesome. And little bby Thor admiring the Valkyries and wanting to be one of them?? My heart.
Loki was just…so attractive. And Thor in his gladiator armor?? *clutches chest, wheezing*
I loved the twist at the end where the point was never that they should try to prevent Ragnarok at all, but let it happen. I feel like this ties back to the myths, even if in a faint and tangential way.
“Frigga would’ve been proud.” And Loki’s face, like he’s trying not to cry…
Also Odin letting go of life because he’s tired and ready to be with Frigga. That, i believe.
“I love you, my sons.” DAMN. This is literally all i wanted. Odin accepting and acknowledging both of his sons and trying to make some peace with them. I’m so, so, so not okay.
Thor saying that prayer alone in his cell that his father’s soul will be welcomed in Valhalla…and Loki finishing the prayer with him. I feel like that was a very subtle and underrated moment of genuine feeling and solidarity.
The music and the aesthetic. I actually enjoyed both planets, and the different moods created by both of them.
FUCKING. HEIMDALL. I LITERALLY WANTED TO CRY. EVACUATING ALL THE COMMONERS. PROTECTING THE INNOCENT. HE IS SO GOOD. The true hero of this movie.
Poor Bruce sacrificing his own existence to save lives of strangers and aliens. I felt so bad for him. And that’s why Bruce is a real Avenger.
“Loki, I thought the world of you.” Brb, crying.
“You’ll always be the god of mischief. But you could be so much more.” !!!!!!!!!!!!! Thor still has some faith and wants Loki to prove him right. I just. I have to lie down.
Calling each other “brother” again????!!!!! Um, thank you.
Anthony Hopkins seriously deserves an Oscar for playing Odin!Loki.
Things I…did not love:
Slaughtering the Warriors Three like it was no big deal. Barely even giving Volstagg and Fandral a line before taking them out. Just…not cool.
Writing out Jane off-screen with a single line. Also not very cool.
Surtur looked kinda silly and lazily animated. Ah, well.
Thor electrocuting Loki was pretty cold. Like, I’m sure he knew Loki would find a way to escape it, but that was pretty dark, even for these two.
Mixed feelings…
I liked the backstory about Odin’s darker, bloodier history with Hela, and how his solution was to literally cover it up. Odin has always been a bit of an ambiguous character, and I’ve always felt that raising his sons had softened him into a more peaceful and wise and compassionate leader than he used to be. (I still argue that Loki is the main reason he decided to make a treaty with Jotunheim.) That being said, I wish we’d gotten some more information on how and why Odin changed. Hela made it sound like he just suddenly woke up and realized mass slaughtering was bad. Maybe Frigga was the reason? But we can only speculate.
That scene with Loki watching the stage version of TDW, especially the humorous slant on his “death” scene. Yes, it was funny and believable that Loki would be that vain and try to clean up his “posthumous” reputation in Asgard. But did the movie really need to mock a genuinely heart-wrenching scene?? I felt kind of uneasy about that. That being said, it ties back into the deleted TDW scene of Loki’s “coronation”: he likes to make believe that things happened differently. He wants to believe, at least for a moment, that he was truly heroic and beloved by others and did the right thing…at least to hate himself a little less for a minute.
I guess it’s confirmed that Loki is a reasonably decent king, in that Asgard itself is running smoothly and he’s taking care of the day to day affairs, the board meetings, the bureaucracy that younger Thor would have had little patience for. It’s just that Loki’s isolationist policy (all the other worlds can burn for all he cares) doesn’t work. And I guess this movie confirms that, while he has a casual disregard for “lower” life forms, he does actually care about Asgardians, in his way.
Loki standing next to Thor’s makeshift throne, at his side, the way it always should have been, left me with all sorts of bittersweet tears. Mainly because i know Marvel will find some way to fuck it all up.
“But did the movie really need to mock a genuinely heart-wrenching scene?? I felt kind of uneasy about that.” – I felt called out, honestly. Like they were pointing out how calculated that scene was to wrench hearts and making fun of us for allowing ourselves to be manipulated that way. But yeah, good point about the connection to the deleted coronation scene.
……I actually haven’t seen anyone say this yet but I’m actually super upset Asgard is gone?? I mean yes yes Asgard is it’s people not a place and that’s all v lovely of course but damn our fandom spent a lot of time wishing we could see more Thor stuff/adventures/etc actually in/over/around Asgard instead of Midgard and now it’s G O N E and I’m S A D Where am I supposed to get my aesthetics of tall golden spire palaces and cool floaty objects on a giant space disk now??? AND I WANT THE BIFROST BACK D:
Loki is the Philosopher King 