kingloptr:

philosopherking1887:

kingloptr:

philosopherking1887 replied to your post “Why tf do people think he’s abusive? All he ever tries to do is help…”

I never considered Thor’s behavior abusive before “Ragnarok,” but his character changed so radically – and not for the better – that I’m rethinking that opinion.

Just–here’s the thing, perhaps it’s technically a semantics issue that has me wanna physically fight when I hear the words ‘Thor’ and ‘abusive’ in the same sentence? I notice the word ‘abusive’ getting thrown around a lot in fandom lately, so much so that it almost annoys me nearly as much as the word ‘problematic’, or the incorrect use of the word ‘romanticize’. And I wouldn’t mind seeing people state some of the less than savory characteristics of Thor in relation to Loki so much IF they were also using it to describe Loki’s more vicious tricks and manipulations and mind-games, and if it weren’t used to ultimately demonize Thor as if he’s unreasonable to do the things he’s done in reaction to Loki’s most recent theatrics (literal theatrics too lol). I mean. ‘left Loki to die’???? Please, like Thor would ever do that holy shit I couldn’t believe I saw that phrase earlier today. Plus where is the respect for Loki’s power and abilities there omg like that little buzzer was actually capable of torturing or harming Loki seriously??

Anyways. if I didn’t see people calling regular ‘rival’ and flat out ‘enemy’ relationships in fiction ‘abusive’ every time I turn around, when that word has a very specific connotation and social meaning to it, and implies all sorts of (different kinds than seen here!) broken trust, power imbalances, specific patterns, cultural settings, stigmas and whatnot….then maybe me seeing someone say “Thor’s behavior is abusive” wouldn’t set off such a ‘do not want’ reflex on my end. 

But I absolutely cannot stand behind using that term to describe any way Thor treats Loki other than maybe any IMPLIED (not even shown in story!) ways he may have treated Loki unwittingly, before Thor 1.

Ordinarily, I would agree with you. I reblog all those anti-anti posts decrying the misuse and overuse of moralistic social justice buzzwords. I think it’s absurd to call villain/protagonist ships inherently abusive. Enmity and rivalry are not to be conflated with abuse. I wrote a fairly blistering post pre-Ragnarok insisting that Thor throwing something at chained-up Loki was just standard sibling crap, not abuse, and it’s OK (indeed, desirable) for heroes to be less than perfect. I even lost a longtime mutual for my trouble.

Having seen Ragnarok, talked to people whose opinions and insight I respect, and thought through the implications of the characters’ actions, I now find that the language of psychological and emotional abuse (forget the fucking buzzer for now) is not inappropriate for the way Thor behaves toward Loki (only in Ragnarok !) – especially because he’s presenting himself not as an adversary, but as acting in Loki’s own best interests. I could probably make all the same points without ever using the words “abuse” or “abusive.” I might instead say that he sees no need to try to take his brother’s perspective, manipulates him, gives him an ultimatum, deals with his behavior by training him with punishment rather than making any effort to understand the reasons behind his actions.

This is, of course, a reflex of the way the movie regards Loki: as a motivationally opaque “naughty piece of fate” (in a Nietzschean phrase) who betrays people for shits and giggles and has no real reason to complain of his treatment by his family. If he has no reasons for anything he does, it is entirely appropriate to deal with him as a causal cog to be manipulated (in the non-moral sense of the word, as one manipulates a tool) rather than an agent. But the previous movies did not present him that way, to my mind; they took his motivations seriously, making his actions comprehensible, intelligible, though (emphatically!) not excusable, much less defensible or justifiable. When Thor, along with the last movie, starts taking the “objective stance” rather than a “participant stance” toward Loki (to use more contemporary philosophical language) – i.e., treating him as something less than a rational agent – it is no longer much of a relationship.

But I realize that it’s probably pointless to try to set myself apart from the people who have been inappropriately applying the language of abuse since the beginning and try to defend my credentials as a reasonable interpreter of the films. There is a distinct class of people (not just me) who take this view only of the Thor of Ragnarok, who is a very different character from the Thor of the previous films. But I suspect that once we have departed from the respectable interpretation, we will continue to be lumped in with a group whose views are presumed to be irrational and easily dismissed.

Nah, I wouldn’t lump you specifically in with the more easily dismissed points of view I’ve seen floating around, and which caused me to rant etc in the first place~~ 

Mostly because I see what you mean here and I also respect your opinion on this and other things. I mean I’m not ignoring that there are manipulation tactics in place and that Thor certainly isn’t always as understanding of Loki as we think/see he should be from an outside perspective. My literal only problem here is when the word ‘abusive’ is being carelessly applied to Thor, when if we’re using that word to describe Thor’s treatment of Loki in any of the movies, it can also be used to describe Loki. Just meaning that their relationship is tumultuous on both sides, it’s not an ‘abuser and victim’ setup at all, in any sense of the word, that’s just not the correct interpretation of the dynamic in any version of Thor and Loki’s story. It may be a different type of abuse, or for different reasons, but any time I see a word as strong and with as much of an implication as ‘abuse’ used to describe Thor, and then right after Loki is considered someone who only behaves the way he does because Thor is and has always ‘abused’ him first….that’s where I tap out. Because anywhere outside of Thor 1 and prior (and I only include that bc we don’t see it for ourselves and can’t guess, but we see hints that Loki was regularly teased….which I would call more tantamount to ‘schoolyard drama’ rather than abuse), in the MCU, it’s the opposite. Thor reacts to Loki the way he does because Loki is still an untrustworthy and unpredictable wildcard. Not the other way around. And there are too many things at stake usually for Thor to have much choice about how he handles Loki in a pinch, IMO. ~

OK, good. I absolutely do not think that all of Loki’s bad actions have been responses to abuse by Thor. There are much better ways of describing their dynamic in earlier movies. Because of the adversarial relationship, I don’t think anything Loki does could felicitously be described as abuse; “being an asshole,” “fucking with Thor,” “straight-up trying to seriously injure Thor” are much more to the point. I prefer “bullying” or really just “being massively insensitive” to describe Thor’s behavior in Thor 1 and earlier. I find the language of abuse applicable only to the manipulation Thor pulls in Ragnarok, and then mostly because he didn’t even bother to ask why Loki banished Odin and pretended to be dead for 4 years. Loki is untrustworthy, but obviously Thor doesn’t think he’s unpredictable (quite the contrary). It’s the assumption that Loki does what he does just for shits and giggles and not because (I don’t know) he’s fucking pissed at Odin and hiding from Thanos.

In a way, Ragnarok treats Loki much more like the classic trickster of myth, who does fuck shit up just because he feels like it and then is forced to clean up his mess under threat of punishment, or just punished if clean-up is not a possibility. That is definitely not an egalitarian relationship, even in myth; Loki is the whipping boy of the gods, not only because he likes to fuck shit up, but also because he’s an outsider, a foreigner, strange and perverse by their moral-cultural standards. But that’s not how Loki has hitherto been presented in the MCU. Thor turns Loki into a Shakespearean villain rather than a trickster; he commits his misdeeds for recognizable psychological reasons, because he bears grudges and is desperate for approval. Even The Avengers points toward comprehensible reasons for Loki’s villainy: revenge against Thor and Odin for previous humiliation; ominous threats from a more powerful villain. I came to understand MCU Loki in those modern literary terms, as a psychologically familiar agent, who does things for reasons recognizable as such – bad reasons, often, but reasons nonetheless. I suppose that the reversion to a pre-modern character archetype (if that’s what happened) is jarring to me. Trickster Loki is cool and all, but that’s not the Loki I got to know and was motivated to write philosophical fanfiction about. And it was also jarring to see MCU Thor reacting as one of the mythical Aesir might to Trickster!Loki – as a “naughty piece of fate” to be controlled rather than a complex agent to be reasoned with. (I’m using that phrase from On the Genealogy of Morality advisedly; Nietzsche does use it to describe a pre-modern way of regarding criminals who break the rules of the community.) From a modern standpoint, the way the mythical Aesir treat Loki is pretty fucked up. Drop that into a basically modern narrative and it looks kind of horrifying.

Anyway, it’s nice to see that reasonable disagreement is sometimes possible in fandom… at least between people who previously know each other and respect each other’s intelligence 😛