So at first I was a little ??? about Hela being Thor’s sister in Ragnarok (squeezing her into the role Angela so recently acquired as their long-lost-big-sister in comics), but the more I think about it, the more I like what it does for Thor and Loki’s arc.
Thor now has two siblings who became his antagonists because of his father keeping secrets – hiding Loki’s heritage, and then hiding Hela’s existence. Which re-enforces how damaging that habit of lying and secrecy is to Asgard’s growth, as represented by Thor. Having those secrets come out and be faced is necessary for Thor’s development and maturity – confronting the sins of his father.
And for Loki – when Loki tries and fails to be a hero, he becomes a villain. He always measures himself against Thor, and then casts himself as Thor’s opposite. But with Hela showing up, suddenly the role of bad guy has been usurped by another sibling; he’s no longer the baddest Asgardian, or even the baddest of Odin’s kids. His sins are now in a whole new context, where his misdeeds are frankly small potatoes. He’s not only been outstripped as a hero by his sibling – he’s been outstripped as a villain. And that forces him to find some other measure of identity; not wholly good, not wholly evil, but something in between – something new.
Also, it re-enforces their brotherhood in an interesting way. Hela is Asgardian. Hela is Thor’s blood sibling (or at least half-sibling). And Hela is still awful. In that light, Loki can no longer ascribe his wickedness to his heritage – he isn’t evil because of some innate genetic factor, or because he isn’t Asgardian, since Hela is clearly capable of that evil despite being raised on Asgard and having Odin’s genes. And while Hela and Thor share blood, they have no kinship to speak of. Thor and Loki do, despite the lack of blood relation. They snipe and bicker like brothers throughout, and there are callbacks to their childhood and past together (the snake story, ‘get help’).
Hela’s appearance as Thor’s sister lends new context to both Thor and Loki’s relationship with each other and their family, and I think it gives us, as fandom, a lot of fresh material to play with as far as our boys’ character growth moving forward.
Well, as many of my readers/blog followers know, I think there are ways to square the tragic Shakespearean anti-villain in Thor with the (apparently) flamboyant sexy bad guy in The Avengers, and my longest ongoing work of fanfiction is an effort to do just that. Loki’s time in the Void definitely changed him; it hardened him in certain ways, but clearly he has also fallen under Thanos’s power in some way or other and remains vulnerable. His loyalty to his family and Asgard (though not Odin) was also recoverable, apparently, so whatever happened didn’t completely turn him evil.
Whedon was deliberately leaving open a possibility for redemption by showing Loki as under threat from Thanos, and not just violent and power-mad but fearful. He also showed that Loki was conflicted, and genuinely tempted by Thor’s offers of affection and salvation. Ultimately, I think Whedon came closer than anyone else to approximating the classical tone of the first Thor, though The Avengers was more epic than tragedy.
Loki: That’d go against my moral compass.
Thor: Your moral compass is a fucking roulette wheel, Loki.
have you ever thought about the fact that since thor and loki are like 1000 years old the events of the entire marvel cinematic universe so far has probably been the equivalent of like…..two really, really bad weeks
this is why they can’t die in Infinity War tho. They are bigger than this. I want them to live and go on some cool space adventures with Guardians. Or alone. Or just settle and…
I want nothing more than for Thor, Loki, and Valkyrie to have Star Trek style space adventures. I want a floating spaceship kingdom with Thor ruling with his brother equally and for Valkyrie to find a hot alien wife. I want them to go on a thousand year hilariously indulgent romp through the cosmos. Please.
Oh my god, you’re a Valkyrie! I used to want to be a Valkyrie when I was younger.
There are script issues here. Why would Thor say, “Oh my God”? I’m pretty sure Thor doesn’t deal with a single God in any religious sense and he and his friends do admit to spending their wasted youth popping onto less evolved planets and BEING their gods for kicks and giggles. In NO social context does this make sense. Neither do contractions unless someone is speaking with a race that uses them.
I’m not bothered by contractions – every language has shortened forms. The “oh my God” is a serious problem, though. (We all have to be creative about that in fic, using Norns and Ymir and Yggdrasil for the standard Christian religious oaths…)
(( 1) This version of the interaction with the fangirls was perfect and a wasted opportunity not to use xD (bless that gif)
2) Hobo Odin, also a wasted opportunity, it’s what fans have been screaming for in comment sections since TTDW came out four years ago
3) Doc making sure that they found Odin, so they’ll go away again, but then leaving cause it’s safe to assume that not much more is gonna happen, now that they’ve found him, just dumping them in norway wouldn’t satisfy Stephen’s thorough careful nature (as a surgeon, and as the A+ student of the mystic arts that he is), it’d be foolish to just lead them to where their father is without making sure to have their reaffirmation that they ARE GOING TO LEAVE NOW (rather than y’know like sit down on a rock on a cliff and have a lil chat about life and death and that long lost sister that has never before been mentionned ever who is very dangerous and also will show up here in like a minute, after Odin’s corpse just fucking evaporates, WHAT KINDA FUCKING CORPSES JUST FUCKING EVAPORATE?? (-actual quote from my AoT rant back in the day xD))
4) having Odin actually have a purpose related to the subject of the movie (which is the event of Ragnarok not the people bringing it about, whoever they might end up being), in that he’s the one telling them about the approaching end, (cause you know he’s the all-father and he’s supposed to like protect Asgard, so if he senses Ragnarok coming, he’ll try to warn people,) rather than Surtur who’s not supposed to have anything to do with the main story at this point, he’s only a random monster Thor fought at the beginning, our audience doesn’t know that he’s got something to do with Ragnarok in the comics, SET UP AND REVEAL, literally the basics of storytelling omfg (*breathes*) ))
hello yes thank you for making everything better I love it
Loki is the Philosopher King 