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iamanartichoke · 3 years

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I wasn't sure if I was going to post this, but I may as well.

I keep starting to reply to things and then stopping bc the words just aren't there, and I suppose I figured out the core of what bothers me so much (and is making me have such a rollercoaster of a fan experience) about the show.

(cut for length)

It's not well-written. My opinion is my opinion, so I'm saying this subjectively, take it or leave it, but ... I feel that it's not well-written. The overall story is fine, and the plot is fine, but I don't know if it's because of the limited number of episodes not being enough to house the story, or because of the relative inexperience of the writer/showrunner+director, or both, or something else, but -

In an earlier reaction post to episode 4, I mentioned really wanting to sink my teeth into all of the subtext I picked up on. That was what made me initially enjoy the episode so much - there were a lot of little moments that I initially felt revealed so much about the characters and about Loki, and I wanted to analyze them. But at some point, as I gathered more information, my perspective changed and now I no longer want to analyze the subtext bc ... subtext = good. Subtext w/out payoff = not as good.

I'll go into more detail in a moment, but I think the tl;dr of it is that I feel like the narrative requires the audience to work way too hard to put together all of the moving pieces here and, like, I kinda just don't want to do that work? Not so much of it, and not in vain. A lot of the enjoyment of Loki's characterization is coming from fans who are rationalizing why he's behaving as he is, but the narrative never actually confirms those rationalizations. It's asking us to figure it out and maybe our conclusions will be correct but maybe they won't, though. At some point, subtext isn't enough without explicit follow-through.

I thought my issue was with the lack of character development - that is, not having enough narrative space to really earn the big things that are happening now, like Loki/Sylvie or Mobius turning against the TVA. And that's still true, to an extent; I still feel like the pacing is all very off and it seems like most of these things kinda came out of nowhere (but are not unbelievable - just undeveloped).

But, yknow, it is what it is, it's a limited series, and I can excuse some things. Ultimately, my issue isn't a problem with what the narrative isn't doing, it's a problem with what the narrative already failed to do and probably cannot recover from at this point.

The narrative has left out significant details that should at least help us do some of the work here. If a person turned on Loki and started episode 1 and had no background knowledge of the character besides that he tried to take over New York - how would that person interpret Loki? Would that person say, oh, well, he's been through X, Y, and Z, and plus A happened, not to mention B, C, and D, so really, it makes sense that he seems off-the-rails, or that he'd want to get ridiculously drunk at the worst time ever.

Maybe we'd like to believe they would, but how would they be getting to that conclusion? The narrative hasn't led them in that direction so, no, they would not say well we have to consider this, this, and that. It would be impossible to really understand Loki as a character from just what we've gotten in the series. The general audience would probably interpret Loki as being out of his element and so it becomes, I wonder how this character is going to get the upper hand here. And, while that's not wrong, it's just so limited.

The narrative at face value does not address Loki's identity crisis from Thor 2011. It does not address his hurt and devastation at being lied to, nor does it address how complicated his self-image is (bc it sucked to begin with and that was before he found out he was part of a race of "monsters," as he'd been taught his entire life). It does not reference Loki being so broken at the end of Thor 2011 that he deliberately let himself fall into the void of space (aka tried to kill himself). It does not reference that he was tortured by Thanos or even that he went through a seriously dark time in between Thor and Avengers, and it absolutely does not reference or address any influence or control of the mind stone.

These are all things that we, the fan audience, know because we've already invested our time into this character's story. But tons of people, the general audience, wouldn't know these things. Or if they did, bc they saw Thor and Avengers, they wouldn't be thinking about them as deeply as we would, nor contextualizing them with how Loki is behaving now, or why it would make sense that he needed to get drunk, or why it's understandable that he needs to keep going-going-going in order to not have a spare second to think or feel.

They'd probably look at Loki, again, as a character who was a villain and is now getting his comeuppance in a place where he has no power or control, and no literal powers, and even when he manages to escape and catch up to the variant, he proceeds to fuck up their plan for seemingly no real reason except that he wanted to get drunk bc he's hedonistic. Which Sylvie even berates him for! I mean. This is not exactly a complex character breakdown, nor a very flattering one, but that's what the narrative has given us.

(If the narrative has addressed Loki's mind control, his torture, his mental breakdown, his suicide attempt, and his general shitty self-esteem as a result of his upbringing, please point it out to me. If the narrative has explicitly acknowledged and referenced these things anywhere and I am missing it, please show me where. Please explain to me how the casual viewer would know any of these things that they need to know in order to actually understand what's happening in this story.)

So I mean, okay, we have a narrative that doesn't paint a full, accurate picture of Loki. Fine, sure. But because the general audience starts out on the wrong footing, they're not going to get out of the overall story what the writers probably intended them to. For example, in episode 3, a lot of us theorized that Loki had some kind of plan - that he broke the timepad on purpose, for some reason, bc otherwise it wasn't believable that he'd be such a failure. But episode 4 revealed that no, there was no bigger plan, Loki just plain old messed up. Which is fine if, again, one is only considering the surface-level portrayal here, but it's not true to Loki's actual characterization.

I mean. Loki is not perfect and Loki actually fails a lot, this is true. He fails for a lot of reasons, but incompetence has never been one of them. Usually it's that either things grew beyond his control, or there ended up being too many moving parts, or he had to change his plan at the last minute due to some roadblock or another being thrown his way, or even that he got in his own way - whatever the case may be for his plans' failures, he was always at least shown to know what he was doing.

That wasn't the case here. The "plan" to fix the Timepad failed as a direct result of Loki's actions, which were careless and made him seem incompetent, like he couldn't even handle this mission. "You had one job," etc. And there were pretty big consequences for this; they were not able to get off-world in time and would have been killed had the TVA not shown up at the last second.

And maybe none of these things matter bc the writers never intended any of this to be a reflection on Loki's character, positive or negative. The situation exists solely because the writers needed to put Loki and Sylvie together in some kind of hopeless scenario so that they could get closer, and thus the narrative could set up their romance. I get that - but, there were other ways to do it that didn't require Loki to look foolish.

Furthermore, the whole reason they needed to set up the romance is to show Loki eventually learning to love himself (like, figuratively but also literally). The audience is supposed to gather that Loki and Sylvie fell for one another, possibly due to the high emotional aspect of, yknow, being about to die (in addition to the variant-bond). The intent is clear: Loki and Sylvie almost die but get rescued at the last minute, having now created an emotional bond --> Loki and Sylvie team up and the narrative further establishes that Loki, at least, has caught feelings --> Loki might confess them but is pruned before he gets the chance --> he somehow survives, he and Sylvie are reunited and don't want to lose one another again, and the combined power of their love is enough to break the sacred timeline and spawn the multiverse, and the reason that the power of their love is so, well, powerful is because it's about self-love and self-acceptance as much as it is about having the capacity to love someone else. The end.

I get all that. The writers more or less said all that. And, I mean, it's certainly not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but it's a fair enough arc to explore. I don't really have an issue with the intent - but my question, however, is this: if the narrative has so far not addressed Loki's background issues (as outlined above), and has furthermore kinda gone out of its way to portray Loki as hedonistic and narcissistic, among other things (like kinda incompetent), and the context the audience starts with is that Loki's this villain who deserves what he gets -

- my question is 1, why should the audience care whether or not Loki gets to a point of loving and accepting himself (thus to make the theme of self-love, via the romance, hold weight) if they don't know that he hates himself to begin with and 2, why should the audience root for Loki to reach that point when so far the perception of him is that he's "kind of an asshole"? if he's a hedonistic narcissist, he probably already has a pretty inflated sense of himself, right? A misplaced inflated sense of himself, at that, because, again, the narrative has made him out to be not that capable of much of anything. (And it didn't start out that way! It seemed to start out with Loki being capable and intelligent but it's like episode 3, in trying to set up the romance, just jumbled it all up somewhere. I think this is why I'm harping on the Loki/Sylvie aspect so much - it's frustrating bc it kinda messes up the whole story and can't even accomplish what it's supposed to anyway.)

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm ultimately getting at is, at what point is the audience supposed to get invested in Loki's personal growth journey?

They can't, not really. Without understanding and having the context of everything Loki has been through up until now, and why he hates himself, and why it's so important that he learn to love himself, then the "payoff" becomes kinda pointless bc the significance of it is lost in translation. So suddenly we're left with this romance that comes off as either "Loki loves Sylvie bc of Reasons" (best-case scenario) or "Loki loves Sylvie bc he's vain, narcissistic, and kinda twisted" (worst-case scenario). Neither of these conclusions are what the writers intended or were going for, I'm positive, but there we are, regardless.

In order for the writers' intent in these storylines to land, they need to address the context of what makes these particular stakes high for Loki. So far, they haven't done that. They're asking the audience to pick up on all of these things, and they're showing things that subtextually make sense and are relatively in-character - but only if you realize there's subtext in the first place.

But you can't expect the audience to do all of the work for you. If you don't want the audience to think that Loki is a narcissistic asshole and instead you are trying to convey that, worst-case scenario, he thinks he's a narcissist but is an unreliable narrator, then you have to address that. If you need the audience to understand why you're going the selfcest route and why it's important to explore Loki's capacity to love himself and others, you have to address where that exploration is starting from and why it matters. Etc etc etc.

The narrative isn't doing any of that. And it isn't like it'd be that hard to do it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here; a lot of the pieces are already there. A few lines of dialogue for context, a brief scene here or there addressing the issues, a little more care and consistency in how Loki handles things - these are all little things that could go a long fucking way in making the narrative stronger.

I'm rambling. My basic point is that my rollercoaster of emotions with this show is because

- as a part of the fan audience, not the general one, I can contextualize and analyze the subtext and come to the conclusions the show wants me to, and thus find the story and the characters more or less enjoyable,

- but I am also going to be using the subtext to come to conclusions that aren't there but probably should be (I think it would be a better story, for example, for Loki to confuse platonic love with romantic love bc it would pave the way to explore just how fucked up Loki's understanding of love - whether of other people or of himself, and the different forms it can take - actually is)

- and when they're ultimately not there, then I think, okay why am I bothering doing all this work just to ultimately feel very unfulfilled? They don't even have to write it the way I would, I'm not saying that, but they do have to do something to make the story feel rewarding.

If we don't get some confirmation of what Loki's been through, and where his headspace is, and why it matters for him to love himself, then the story remains pretty shallow and, for me, it's not fulfilling enough. It's not engaging enough. There isn't actually anything to sink my teeth into, so it becomes kind of boring. Maybe it's rewarding to other people, and that's great for them, but like - I need more than whatever this is.

So I'm just like - well, I had a lot of worries about this show, but my being bored wasn't one of them and now there's only two episodes left and am I really not going to get anything out of this, in the long run? No new canons, no new depths or layers, no new information on Loki's experiences? This is it?

I don't dislike it. I didn't start out disliking it, and I probably wont end up disliking it. I mean, there are a lot of good moments, and good things, and fan service-y things that I appreciate. As far as inspiration for fic goes, it's a goldmine, both plot-wise as well as aesthetic-wise. All of that is great. I don't dislike this show.

But I am disappointed in it, and I feel like I'll be watching the next two episodes lacking the sense of anticipation that would make it exciting. I'll still enjoy them, probably, if for nothing else just the sheer Loki content, but whatever it was I felt watching episodes 1 and 2 is gone and I'm sad about that, too. Because I really wanted to feel fulfilled by this series; I wanted it to fill up the void that Loki's death in IW created three years ago. And I just ... don't feel it. Maybe, maybe that'll change over the course of episodes 5 and 6. I don't know.

Everything that I end up enjoying long-term, I think, will come about as a result of my own interpretations and analysis and while theoretically there's nothing wrong with that, if I had known all I'd get out of this series was more headcanons or support for my current headcanons then, well - that's fine, I suppose, but I'll definitely a little bit robbed.

#loki spoilers #loki series negativity #loki tv series spoilers #loki series spoilers #long post

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kittyprincessofcats · 5 years

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I know I’m about to open a can of worms here, but... Can someone explain to me how the mind of a Loki-hater works? I just don’t understand? I mean, if someone just doesn’t like him or doesn’t care... fine, whatever, we all find different characters appealing. But what I don’t understand is the people who genuinely call him “a priviledged white murderboy” or compare him to characters like Kylo Ren (who is a priviledged white murderboy, just to be clear on that).

How can someone watch Thor 1, The Avengers, and Thor TDW and somehow come to the conclusion that Loki is a priviledged, sheltered, rich kid who never had problems and kills people for the lulz. HOW? Did they watch the movies with both eyes and ears closed? Did they only watch The Avengers and skip through half of Thor 1? Is it the misogyny (most of Loki’s fans are women so obviously they must only like him for his looks, “dumb fangirls” etc.)? Seriously, how do you watch these movies and miss out on:

- Odin being a dictator and colonizer who kidnapped Loki from his home country as a baby, changed his appearance with a spell to make him “pass” as Asgardian, stripped him of his birth culture and even raised him to consider his birth country evil

- Loki being neglected and not taken seriously his whole life, having his “feminine” interests mocked in Asgard’s partiachic society, constantly being made fun of by Thor’s friends, his own brother - who he adores more than anything - putting him down all the time, his father never acknowleding him

- Loki (who never wanted the throne in the first place) having to suddenly run a kingdom when his brother gets himself banished and his father falls into the Odinsleep, having to suddenly manage a war he didn’t start, dealing with Thor’s friends commiting treason, dealing with the revelation of his heritage and the feeling that he has to prove himself to Odin now. (Okay, to be fair, I think Frigga handing him control and telling him to make his father proud was a deleted scene, so the actual movie might make it look like he took the throne and planned all of this, but he didn’t. Think about it for one second: There’s no way he could have predicted the Odinsleep or Thor’s banishment. He looks shocked when both happen.)

- Loki trying to destroy his birth realm in a desperate attempt to prove that he’s “not like them”, Loki being so desperate that he commits suicide when Odin doesn’t approve.

- No one in Asgard (except for Frigga) mourning Loki at all. Loki asking Thor “Did you mourn?” in The Avengers, because he knows they didn’t and he’s right.

- Loki being tortured by Thanos and forced to attack New York. How is that something people miss? Did everyone take their bathroom break during that scene where The Other threatens Loki? Did they conveniently ignore the after-credits scene?

- Odin telling Loki “Your birthright was to die” and acting like Loki should be grateful Odin didn’t murder him as a baby. Just in case you forgot: This was their first interaction after Loki’s suicide attempt. Odin found out his son - whom he drove to try and commit suicide - was alive, and the first thing Odin did was telling him he should have died and that he would have executed him for his crimes if it wasn’t for Frigga.

- Just to put this into perspective: When Thor started a war and killed hundreds of Frost Giants, Odin banished him to Earth without his powers for three days. When Loki tried to commit suicide, got tortured and attacked Earth and killed people because Thanos forced him to, Odin wanted to execute him, only agreed not to because of Frigga, then locked Loki up in solitary confinement for the rest of his life and didn’t allow Frigga to see him.

- Loki wasn’t even allowed to go to his mother’s funeral. Thor never even asks him why he attacked Earth, only visits Loki when he needs his help, refuses to comfort him about Frigga’s death and promises to lock Loki up again if he does help him. And people are blaming Loki for not telling Thor he was alive? Would you have told the man who promised to lock you up for the rest of eternity that you’re alive? I kinda doubt it.

- And even after all of that, Loki was merciful enough to only banish Odin to a care-home on Earth instead of killing him. (Friendly reminder that Kylo Ren murdered his father while his father was offering him a second chance. Odin never offered Loki any chances, straight-up wanted to kill him, and Loki still showed mercy. But sure, tell me more about how your comparison is totally appropriate.)

How do people watch ALL OF THAT, and somehow not end up at least admitting that Loki was treated unfairly? How do people watch these movies and say that he’s selfish when all he’s ever been doing is sacrificing himself for his family over and over again and getting nothing in return? HOW??? Someone explain this to me, because it blows my mind.

And sidenote - the whole “straight white murderboy” thing is such complete BS it makes me want to slam my head against my desk. 1) Loki’s not straight. He’s canonically bi/pan in the comics and queercoded in all of this movies. 2) Not even the “boy” part is true - Loki is genderfluid. 3) The “white” part is what really blows my mind when people use it as a reason to hate this character. Because first of all Loki’s entire story is about being a different race than the rest of his family and being treated like shit because of it. (Yes, I realize it’s “fantasy blue people racism”, not real-world racism, but it’s still an aspect of the character that - in the fantasy context - makes him the opposite of priviledged.) And secondly... all of the Avengers in A1 are also white? 5/6 of them are straight white guys? So who are we supposed to root for, according to these Loki-haters? In Star Wars, there’s POC heroes who get ignored by the fandom and I understand the frustration of everyone loving the white villain instead - but in the first(!) Avengers everyone is white? So who does tumblr think is a more deserving fave here??? I just don’t understand this logic even in theory??

(Seriously, someone explain this to me? Is is because of the Hitler comparison in The Avengers? Because that honestly should be blamed on Joss Whedon being a shitty writer who can’t get a ‘character is evil’ message accross differently. Narratively, this comparison doesn’t fit at all. Or is it because people took the ‘Loki keeps betraying Thor’ line from Ragnarok and took it seriously instead of judging the movies by what actually happened? I tried to read posts where people explain why they hate Loki, and whenever they list all the “horrible things he’s done” half of them are things that never even happened? Like... “repeatedly betrayed his brother who trusts him” - NOT TRUE, “tried to commit genocide on earth” - NO HE DIDN’T??, “killed more people than anyone else” - FACTUALLY WRONG, “always fakes his death” - HE LITERALLY NEVER DID, “betrayed Asgard” - BITCH WHEN?, “only did one selfless thing in his life” - which one of them are you talking about, just wondering?, “freed Hela” - are we just making shit up at this point? he didn’t even know about Hela!, “caused Odin’s death” - why is anyone acting like that’s a bad thing and Odin didn’t deserve to die?, “facist dictator” - again: WHERE? Do any of you stupid Americans even know what facism is? Stop throwing around big words if you don’t know how to use them.)

Or is it just that people don’t actually know the movies, see a villain who has huge female fanbase and come to the “obvious” conclusion that it must be because those women are stupid and “like making excuses for bad boys”? Do people take Tom Hiddelston more seriously when he talks about Loki’s motivations and says he’s just misunderstood and not evil? Because this time it’s a man saying it?

#Loki #MCU #Loki Meta #Thor movies #Loki's resistance #Loki Friggason #long post #this just honestly baffles me #I get that not eveyone spent the same amount of time reading Loki-meta but... this is some really obvious stuff?

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mythlokisuggestion-blog · 6 years

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What do you think of Tom Hiddleston and mcu!Loki?

I’m technically not allowed to watch any marvel movies according to one main-clause (followed by a very vulgar relative clause) in Idris Elba’s restraining order against me so obviously I watched them and while I obviously missed some of the major plot-details because Idris Elba wouldn’t let my eyes go I will say this:

Tom Hiddleston is clearly a great actor with a really great range and the entire journey of him losing his eyebrow-pencil but finding that Jeff Goldblum loves him nevertheless is very dramatic and gripping, but even for someone whose spectrum does indeed cover the range his does, it’s still visibly difficult for him to keep up with the inconsistencies of the movies and this is something that really affects the character of Loki strongly. Personally, I’d go so far as to say that there are only two movies out of the five that give Loki actually inherent development (as in: force them to make a decision of their own instead of just being thrown at the plot like a forgotten towel into the wind) and those are Thor I and Thor: Ragnarok. Obviously, I can see you argue that Thor: Dark World is about Loki re-joining forces with Thor to avenge their mother, but that’s just man-pain. Loki never makes their own decision to work with Thor but there is no doubt that even at their deepest, darkest moments they would have gone after the murderer of their mother. That’s not development. It’s just putting the character in a position where there’s only one obvious solution anyway. Character development puts a character in a position where we don’t know how they’d act and we either see them make a decision and learn it was the wrong one or we see previous character development come to fruition with them choosing something one wouldn’t have initially expected like I did when I first heard about Dirty Chai which immediately meant I wanted to drink Dirty Chai except I noticed I don’t like it so now when people offer to offer me “A Beverage Mixed Out Of Two Beverages That Clearly Shouldn’t Be Mixed?” I say no which is not what I would have said three hours ago. That’s growth. Asking me if I’d murder a giant who wants to eat children on the other hand. I would always have given the same answer at any point in my life.

The other protest you’ll make is Infinity War. But that has no development either, it’s just a solution to the development we’ve seen in Ragnarok and I almost feel like the script was written before Waititi had written his or maybe they hadn’t bothered to read it or maybe they simply didn’t care or they weren’t sure their audience would have seen that and just wanted to make sure that we’re all caught up and I found it really cringy for some reason? I dunno, I feel it could have been handled more delicately than just ticking off every aspect of Loki’s struggle that a series of inconsistent movies had thrown at them. Especially, and I know it’s an unpopular opinion, the whole: “We have a Hulk line.” Like. That’s the last relationship I cared about.

Things that would have interested me:

Loki and Thor talking about Jötunheim

Valkyrie and Loki fixing things up after their intrusion of her mind in Ragnarök

Bruce and Loki talking about the invasion of Earth and maybe resolving what had happened between them and Thanos to make them do that.

Loki reconciling their love for fruit-y cocktails with the overreliance on artificial sweetener on the Grandmaster’s ship

Maybe it’s especially the ‘of Jötunheim’ line that bothered me. Obviously, me being of Jötunheim the first Thor movie wasn’t a mere warning about the consequences of climate change (you thought Day After Tomorrow scared you lol?) but as you know there’s a not-so-ancient law of your people to abandon the children you do not wish to keep. (usually children with disabilities) and this actually ancient Loki has an actual ancient law that says Finder’s Keepers and Finder’s Raisers and Finder’s Cherishers of Babies Forever so obviously the whole storyline about Loki being abandoned by their parents did resonate with me deeply and that’s why it bothered me that it was the most poorly handed in the five movies. It’s not that I mind that I see the subject addressed although I wished they had gone out of their way to show that this was an actual practice of the ancient Norse cultures (and many others) instead of just making it a plot-point because I feel like it would have given their movie more relevance, considering that there were actual terms and practices surrounding it. Also, with Odin being a very unreliable narrator, it would have given the viewers a better context for what is true and what isn’t because many aspects of the adoption remain really obscure. It’s never really dealt with. I mean, the first movie explicitly makes the adoption the stepping stone of Loki’s story-arc with Odin handling multi-racial adoption so poorly that they grow up groomed to detest their own race to the point where even for little children the idea of genocide is acceptable and glorified. And obviously, the first movie ends with them throwing themself to their death off the Bifröst so in a storyline encompassing five movies that would make a good cliffhanger or maybe bridge-over-black-hole-hanger in which the next logical step of the narrative would be the confrontation with Thor about Loki being of the race they’ve been raised to detest.

And that’s where we get to the inconsistencies of the movies and how the affect Loki’s characterisation so much. We never see Thor actually learn about this. We take his word – nay, Loki’s assumption for it that Odin, a proven unreliable narrator, has told Thor. We don’t know how that went, we don’t know how Thor coped with that knowledge, whether he questioned his own behaviour, how it affected his view of their sibling etc. We don’t even know for sure Frigga knows where Loki is from and who their parent is – in fact, her relationship to that secret is one of the poorest handled plot-points in the entire series but you didn’t ask about that so back on topic. I will later say something on the subject of between movies vs. in movies but what matters is: We never have that confrontation. We never see Loki deal with their Jötun form in the Avengers and you’re like: ok cut them some slack, they had to force a lot of plot between Tony Stark’s one-liners so actual characterisation of one of the like four interesting villains that give the MCU such a giant head start over the DCU (two of which they don’t even really own). And you say to yourself: Ok they’re going to pick it up in the Dark World. And I’m not going to go into the misogynist implications of killing Frigga, but just say we get a lot of narrative nonsense that is a) Fridging her to further Loki’s man-pain and b) leaving the main-motivator of Loki’s as a villain (the struggle with their adoption) at that dungeon shouting match, unresolved. It absolutely robs avenging Frigga as Loki’s supposed main-motivation for redemption of any and all meaning or at least makes it so obscure that we can’t tell its exact meaning. Especially because their sacrifice (and I will not get into the annoying idea that a villain must die to be redeemed bc I’m a villain and find it offensive) was also spontaneously changed long after the filming had actually ended.

And there again, next inconsistency. We don’t know whether they faked their death on purpose (and if they did how long they had been planning it and whether it was all a big escape-and-take-over-Asgard-attempt) or whether they thought they were dying which means that their sacrifice was meaningful after all but it’s once again not resolved. And I mean, I’d prefer to think it was, but still. Remember when I said I was going to get back to the idea of between the movies vs. in the movies? I get back to that now because I’m not a Marvel writer: The most interesting things happen to Loki between movies and not in them. I’m bolding this because I’m a bold person but it’s also the main-issue I have with the Thor-movies despite me generally standing on the side that they’re actually among the better Marvel movies, no matter what edgy Youtubers say on the subject, but just fall flat on the perceived intended audience (male fanboys who feel they could do and say anything if only they had the power to force people to put up with it which is technically true without consequences which is not true) because Thor’s main-character arc is about him overcoming the issues and character-traits as flaws that make many other MCU-characters so ‘cool’ and ‘funny’.

We get the same with Loki dealing with their heritage-issues. At the beginning of Ragnarök they’ve magically resolved them. Or have they? Or are they just weaponizing Odin ‘outing’ them at their fucking trial (which was also filmed after the movie was made) I mean, in a way I like that Taika Waititi focussed Thor’s and Loki’s reconciliation on them overcoming their main-problem of all movies – trust – and not the initial problem that had set them apart - Loki’s jealousy when they realised that they never had a place in their own world - that had been abandoned for so long now. Especially considering that what sparked even the revelation of Loki’s true heritage was their distrust for Thor whom they didn’t trust to be a good king – and were justified. All that is, for once, resolved with Thor becoming a good king and Loki trusting them.

So personally. If you had just ended their storyline there it would have been fine. Maybe give us the damn hug and some talk about the Jötun issue and leave it at that. But then Infinity War rolled around and I’m not going to get into the can of political worms that is killing of half a ship of refugees in the current social climate because it was a movie about killing off people at random for others to survive and that’s an entire swimming pool of worms that the can is just swimming in slowly drifting into the distance, but it was just. Frigga’s death x10. We didn’t need it, it addressed a new thing about Loki’s storyline that will never be developed – their relationship with Thanos and the actual factors motivated by it – and as always left it unresolved. Thor, being the supposed centrum of these movies – will never know about it, most likely. I mean, we’ll apparently get some flashback and time-travel in Avengers 4 but I don’t have high hopes that something will be resolved then and I hope we at least get a good moping scene from Thor. It’s almost ironically that while Thor doesn’t know about the exact background of Loki working with Thanos and just maybe knows we-don’t-know-how-much about his sibling’s actual heritage, he seems to know exactly how dead they are. Because these movies are so inconsistent that he got to straight-up tell the audience that Loki is dead when it makes no sense because obviously choking on a grape kills them and not being stabbed through the heart. Which brings me to the next topic:

Their powers. Me being an avid magic-user who can do everything but turn into birds I’m very interested in that. Of course, we’ve got this big difference between comics-Loki and movies-Loki with MCU-Loki being significantly weaker and significantly more knife-focussed. And that’s fine. But their powers are also so fucking inconsistent. As a baby they can pull off a full-conversion into an Aesir but as a grown-up they can’t even make a solid copy of themselves? Sometimes illusions dissolve at mere contact but when they cover themself with it they can hold for four years are you telling me that no one ever brushed against them for four years? What about their clothes are they solid? Also, Loki when he’s visiting Thor when he’s under arrest by SHIELD seems to shift between visible and invisible and solid and not-solid which is something that would have come in handy at various other places in the movies but wasn’t used. We know that Loki can turn themself and others into animals but again we only hear that talked about but never actually see it employed when it would be useful. Also being Jötun can they employ ice-magic because that shit looks useful or only with the Casket and why didn’t they take the Casket is it because they resolved the issue and don’t want to revisit it or because the wound is still open or any of the other thousands of things you didn’t resolve??? The aspect about this handwave-y magic stuff isn’t so much that it bothers me, particularly because we know that Frigga, the most relevant relationship they have aside from Thor, is the one who taught them magic so it’s not like there isn’t an interesting basis for this subject to build upon.

I mean this all sounds like a lot of complaining but it’s also because I really liked the character that I can actually be bothered to get upset about these things. And the thing is, sometimes I feel like the things that annoy me are the things the writers do on purpose and the aspects I like are purely circumstantial. Like that scene about them standing on a street yelling stuff about submission all-dressed in leather in a reputed to be rather homophobic part of a country? Iconic stuff. The fact that they wear as many layers at all times and cover up as much as they can? Obviously a common villain trope and a common decision but for a character feeling so at odds with their own body (a storyline you couldn’t be bothered with for four movies in case you remember MCU) just fuel for headcanons. That fancy leather get-up clearly hand-crafted with golden pieces added paired…with THAT wig? Iconic. Tbh reason for concern too. Like I see that Loki like 3 times a day when they go to that Lush right beside my favourite spot for arguing with pigeons and my hair still looks better than theirs even with the pigeons nesting in it. I’m not 90% sure that the whole sweaty Christmas Tree look Loki had in Avengers was all to make them seem more villainous or at least to be attributed to how ‘manic’ and ‘insane’ they are but actually gave people material to be super-detailed in their ideas about how they were tortured by Thanos which would actually be interesting. There are also a lot of characters that it would be interesting to see Loki interact with that they don’t ever share a scene with in the Bravest Crossover Event Of All Times.

That’s not to say that I don’t like their interpretation, I do, but I just feel like if they had focussed on fewer subjects and stuck with them through the movies instead of throwing new pain at them (and at Thor) with every installation the whole thing would have been more interesting and satisfying in the end. This way they just forced the fans to figure out stuff for themselves. I notice that I only spoke of Tom Hiddleston as an actor and not as a person and I want to assure you his restraining order is very effective too.

#Anonymous

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