Answering your previous question(s) will involve digging up some old posts where I’ve addressed/ranted about what I think was going on with Loki’s death in Infinity War, so I’ll deal with that tomorrow (I hope). This one’s a little more straightforward.

To set the record straight: disliking Ragnarok on the whole does not mean that I dislike every single thing about it; it’s just that I don’t feel like I need to add a disclaimer specifying what I didn’t hate every time I want to make an argument regarding what I thought was bad. I do like Valkyrie (or Brunnhilde, rather, since that’s her name). The things I like about her are probably the usual things that are cited when people talk about how awesome she was: a woman of color was allowed to inhabit an archetype that’s usually reserved for men; she wasn’t over-sexualized; the possibility of romance with Thor was allowed to remain a mere suggestion. She’s a morally flawed badass, which is great.

However, I do have some issues with the way her story was handled. The film seemed remarkably blasé about the time she spent as a slave-trader, in much the way that it (and Bruce!) was inappropriately blasé about the fact that the Hulk had spent the last 2 years killing gladiator slaves for sport. And also the fact that she nonchalantly pulverized some of her fellow scrappers… I mean, I guess they were about to kill Thor, but that was a lot of casual death that never got put on her moral tab. To reiterate, I like the fact that she’s morally flawed; I like heroes who are morally flawed. But it also needs to be acknowledged. As a Loki fan in the first instance, I’m tired of people insisting at me that I need to acknowledge all the terrible things Loki has done before I’m allowed to like him, while out of the other side of their mouths telling me that I should stop insisting that Thor fans acknowledge his moral failings. There is a clear double standard, in fandom as in the films themselves, between the characters who are designated “heroes” and those who are designated “villains”: once you’ve played the villain role, you can sacrifice yourself to save the universe but still never live down your crimes; but if you’ve been put in the hero role, your crimes are automatically expunged, even if they’re comparable in extent to the so-called villain’s. (Well, except that the Team Cap people are constantly going on about Tony’s crimes… but that’s because they’ve cast him as a villain.)

I’m also not thrilled that Valkyrie has been presented both by Marvel and by the fandom as a “replacement” for Jane Foster – nay, as an upgrade, who’s “more equal” to Thor (per Kevin Feige) and also better in social justice terms because she’s not white (according to Tumblr). That, however, is not a mark against Valkyrie as a character. I just don’t like the way she’s been implicitly or explicitly opposed to Jane, as if you’re only allowed to like one. They have different strengths; Jane’s strength is her intellect, and as a 5′1″ academic who most certainly cannot beat people up, that appeals to me. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with Thor being attracted to a woman for her intelligence and creativity rather than her warrior’s prowess. I wish the two characters had been allowed to coexist. With Jane and Darcy unceremoniously booted, I’m pretty sure Ragnarok, unlike the previous two Thor films, does not pass the Bechdel test.

As to where Brunnhilde is now… I think IW didn’t address it because the writers didn’t totally know what was going on with Ragnarok and also were lazy/didn’t care. My headcanon is that Thor ordered her to lead the Asgardian civilians who couldn’t fight due to age or disability onto whatever lifeboats/escape pods were on the Ark and then protect them wherever they ended up.