Thor: Killed people of Jotunheim because he was called a “princess” and nearly led Asgard into war because of his immaturity, arrogance and hotheadedness
Odin: Punished him by banishing to Midgard to learn his lesson and become better; he can come back to become king of Asgard once he proves himself worthy 😊
Loki: Killed people of Earth because he had turned mad and villainous after returning alive from an abyss that he fell into and was presumed dead, where he likely experienced unimaginable horrors that broke him and possibly had his mind manipulated by Thanos (A little background: He had let himself fall into the void out of despair, as Odin had denied him approval even after he tried so desperately to prove himself a worthy son. This was shortly after he had been hurt and devastated over learning that his whole life had been a lie, that he was actually adopted and was in fact the abanboned son of Asgard’s enemy, one of those horrible monsters that he had heard so much about in bedtime stories and Thor had been so excited about slaying since they were children. He only ever sought to be Thor’s equal–for years he was made to feel inferior, to feel like he was living in the shade of Thor’s greatness, because of Odin’s blatant favouritism towards Thor and also as a result of growing up in a society with a culture that honoured warriors and scorned magic users like him–but then he just found out that from the onset he was never meant to be Thor’s equal in the way he believed he had the right to be.)
Odin: Told him his birth right was to die as a child, punished him by condemning him to life imprisonment and would have sentenced him to death if not for Frigga
Me: I’m so glad you asked. I do like Thor. But he’s like this great unwieldy puppy. So cute and loyal, with boundless energy, and he romps over everyone when he’s excited and a bit scary as fuck when he’s riled up. But, you see, I’m a cat person. I like the grace and subtlety of felines. I like their honest playfulness, hard won faithfulness, their quiet predatory nature, and their ability to wreak havoc and convince you it was the dog. I really appreciate the intelligent underhandedness of a cat. Which is why I like Thor, but Loki is my spirit animal.
While I find the notion that Loki’s an innocent and pure angel annoying and ridiculous, I find the notion that Thor’s innocent and pure equally so. He doesn’t have to have been a morally righteous, wonderful, unproblematic sunshine boy since birth to be a hero. He can have made serious mistakes, held gross, racist views, perpetuated Odin’s imperialism through both rhetoric and action, etc. and still be good because he’s grown as a person. Because he continues to grow and learn from his mistakes. Excusing his bad behavior, calling it justified (even the stuff he did/said to/about the Frost Giants at the beginning of Thor), only encourages the dumb idea that heroes can’t be flawed, that people are always one way. I’ll always maintain that Thor had good intentions, but, for fucks sake, Loki has good intentions in Thor (selfish good intentions, but he’s trying to be the hero to prove himself). Good intentions =/= morally right. Condemn the heroes for their wrong actions, just as we condemn the villains.
Gosh, I’ll never understand why people want Thor to be so boring, stagnant, and artificial! XP
We (people who are Loki fans in the first instance) don’t even have a problem saying that Loki has worse moral problems than Thor does. Guess what? You’re allowed to like characters who have done bad things! You’re even allowed to prefer a morally worse character over a morally better character on aesthetic grounds! I do it all the time.
There’s a consistent problem with people on this site, or maybe in fandom generally, denying the existence of moral complexity and ambiguity. They claim their favorite character is always good and pure all the time, and if that character comes into conflict with another, they feel the need to claim that the other character is totally evil and wrong. I really wish people would stop doing that. It makes the characters and the movies (or books or TV shows) more boring than they actually are.
Loki is the Philosopher King 