#Odin of course takes the most literal and mechanical solution to the problem and physically beats their souls into one

[kinnoth]

This is all to say that Thor was never Odin's first choice for anything, born as he was under Hela's shadow, born as he was to the purpose of replacing her, born as he was to the fact that Odin did not want her replaced in the first place and it was only bc Hela's ambition outstripped Odin's caution that he had to put her down

That is to say that Odin was always going to be disappointed in Thor, never mind the fact that he was also an anxious and sensitive child, who cried easily and was afraid of things like ghost stories and the dark. He was strongly built, bigger than his peers, and though he always won easily at sport and play, one could easily see how he held back.

(Hela never held back; Hela hurt her fellow children for sport and profit.)

And that's not even touching on the fact that he was always fussing after that Jotun foundling, tending to it and shielding it and mothering it.

By the time Thor met his father for the first time, face to face, he was 8 and Odin had already spent those years nursing his prejudices against him, and there was nothing Thor could do by then to make it up to him.

Anyway this is getting off topic, bc the thing I wanted to talk about is the fact that had Thor and Loki not been the unaccountably, inseparably, soul-bondedness kind of close as they were, they would have had to have been at each other's throats their whole lives. "There are no second princes on Asgard" is an adage that gets thrown around a lot (by me) and it means exactly that: had they not been the sort of unnatural closeness that they were, one of them would had to have killed the other in order to secure his place as heir. It is the way things are done; it is how things have to be.

(I think that this accounts for Thor's complete calm and acceptance when Loki sends the destroyer to Midgard after him in thor1. It has always been Loki's right to kill him in order to claim the throne; it has always his right to kill Loki if he'd ever thought it necessary. But he never did, and he never thought those old rights would have to be invoked between the two of them, but he's always known about them. They both have. It is simply the way things are)

#this is another meta i have in drafts and never finished but #when Odin took Loki it was Frigga who raised the loudest protest #yes it is all well and good for Odin to make all the dynastic plans he wants to make #but a) she doesn't want her son taking some jotun savage for a bride #b) even if she did what's to stop the both of them from growing up and hating each other #and c) the giants are supposedly matched at birth to their fated mates. what is Odin going to do to subvert the will of fate? #Odin of course takes the most literal and mechanical solution to the problem and physically beats their souls into one #so that they cannot be separated by anyone or anything - be that the will of fate or that of his wife #unfortunately this causes some unintended consequences #thor and loki literally cannot be separated #as babies they would scream until they made themselves sick unless they were put in the same crib #they had no interest in anything outside of one another and refused to engage with other stimuli #the only way frigga can wrest her son back from the effects of the soul bond is by magically sedating him for hours then days at a time #to try and acclimate them to being apart #it's better by the time they can walk and talk but then it's still difficult #there's less screaming and sick but now it's a deep-seated and constant anxiety #they ask for each other and then when it's made clear that they have to spend time apart they ask after each other #loki gets sick and thor is consumed with the possibility that they'll never see each other again #thor has to leave the allmother's garden with the other boys and loki forcibly changes his sex so that he can go with him #it's a lifetime of this even as one concession to growing up after another puts another measure of distance between them #i just need y'all to understand when i talk about how their unresolved feelings had ''deformed'' them its bc its 1000 years of this shit #internal thor tag #who's enjoying all this background meta for fic that doesn't even exist yet #odin worst-dad