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galaxythreads · 7 months

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Foegive me of this is a question you've answered in the past but, what are your thoughts on the scene at the beginning of Avengers 1 where Loki sort of doubles over/trips on his way out of the SHIELD base and it's never addressed?

Also thoughts on the canonicity of various myths to the MCU Loki backstory?

no worries, I don't mind answering questions twice. My blog is long and tales tales, so I understand if people don't want to hunt for answers and just reask stuff.

as far as your question goes,

SCREAMING SCREAMING SCREAMING. Do you KNOW how much I LOVE that SCENE (the answer is no because I haven't talked about it) but I LOVE THAT SCENE! That is THE scene to me. I love everything about how carefully it's handled because what you have to look for is SUBTEXT here, because the Avengers was written in a way that forces you to think. It doesn't lay everything out for you, it's intended you come to your own conclusions.

The Avengers trusts you and that is a very strange thing for media now. It's pretty rare to find one that doesn't treat you like an idiot.

Breaking this down:

The first frame with Loki is of him kneeling. That is the first thing we learn about him. I want you guys to remember that the introduction of a character is HUGE. It tells us the most important things for us to know about that character right now

So what do we need to know about Loki RIGHT THEn. Right at the start of the movie?

he's smart. He opened the portal with the Tesseract, from across space, and teleported himself to another planet. This is something no one has replicated (using an infinity stone from across space). Loki is said to "know it's workings like they never will" which says a lot about him.

Loki was GIVEN the scepter by the Chitauri, but if you watch that opening opening scene, it looks more like it's being forced on him than him GLADLY taking it. (There's this half second where the Other waits to make sure Loki is actually going to hold it. Loki doesn't reach for it until he has to. One of the most powerful objects in existence and it practically has to be shoved into his hands) Look how close their bodies are. Like bro???

-okay, then Loki comes through the portal and he is KNEELING. so the first, and I mean the VERY FIRST thing we need to know about Loki is that he is in the subservience of someone/thing else. This gif below is artwork of that moment, but still. Like. who do you think he's kneeling TO? Well, the opening scene of the Avengers showcases that the Other is kneeling to Thanos, Ergo, using the subtext trust that the director/writers have given us, that means Loki was kneeling to Thanos before he came through the portal.

And then, Loki comes out like a hunted animal, but he legitimately does not remember he's holding the scepter until Fury points it out to him. You can see him look down at it in confusion. And okay, WHY is he confused? I remember watching this for the first time at 14 and going huh, that's kinda weird he forgot he had the weapon. What this is trying to tell us is that this is not a familiar weapon to Loki AND -- it is doing something to him. It's emitting that same misty thing that it does when Loki possesses someone later. That wispy smoke is always so interesting to me because of the implications. The scepter doesn't do that unless it is FRESHLY possessing someone. And what do we know about Loki TWO SECONDS AGO?

he was kneeling to thanos.

Anyway, so Loki gives his name, is not a well man, and the scene you're actually referring to is this one:

which GETS ME EVERY TIME. I could talk aout this scene for hours. The implications of it. (Also if you've read my work YSFSLWFTCA, that man who grabs Loki's back is Nathan Swenson ;)

So I've been getting professional acting training for about 6-7 months now and one thing I have learned is that nothing makes it in the movie by accident. The director has to approve it, the editor, the producer, up the whole food chain. This was not Tom Hiddleston sneezing and then them keeping it in the movie because it's funny. So this was put in on purpose. They WANTED you to know that Loki isn't okay. And a scene like this would get like what? idk 3-6 takes at a minimum, which means that they flimed this ON PURPOSE 3-6 times. Tom Hiddleston was instructed to do this ON PURPOSE. That guy who approaches Loki's back was told to do that ON PURPOSE. Loki was supposed to be shown to be a mess physically. Like. Then they go and KEEP doing this later, when Loki can't get into the car and can barely keep himself upright. Loki doesn't start to look "okay" until Germany and even then he's not doing amazing.

What's interesting to me, beyond the obvious implications toward bodily harm - torture! :) - is the timing. Loki immediately topples when Clint hands the Tesseract to Selvig. There's something about Clint doing that that seems to cause him physical pain. That could be a coincidence, and I bet it is because it's not brought up again in the movie that the Tesseract exchanging hands gives Loki physical pain, but it is interesting.

Another interesting point is that Clint looks away, Selvig doesn't care, but that sheild agent Immediately moves up to put his hand on Loki's back to support him. And Loki doesn't flinch. That always struck me as weird, right, because even people who don't have trauma flinch when someone touches their back and they weren't expecting it. And Loki clearly wasn't? So why didn't he twitch at least a little? Tom Hiddleston is too good of an actor for that to be a mistake.

So to me that means that Loki just... doesn't have feeling in his spine at that moment. Or he was in too much pain to even register it. Loki was clearly tortured with some type of heat. If you watch him in this scene he's displaying all the signs of heat exhaustion. So I kinda think that maybe Loki got burned so badly on his back before this happened that he just... doesn't feel anything anymore. It had to have been recent for walking to nearly send him toppling, but Loki's back is a source of issues for the entire movie.

That is why this scene is here from a directing perspective. to SET UP Loki's back problems. The extent of them are left vague, but I think when Tom Hiddleston and Joss Whedon sat down to talk about Loki for the Avengers, one of the things they must have agreed on was that Loki was not in good physical condition and they planned to show that THE ENTIRE MOVIE. I don't know if they talked about torture or Thanos, but they talked about SOMETHING.

But I just...idk. That guy grabs Loki's back to support him in an effort to help and it's just so interesting to me. Because how does the mind control WORK then? Selvig is obsessed with the Tesseract. He almost seems possessed by that rather than Loki. Clint goes completely silent and doesn't do anything except the mission. THIS GUY immediately comes to take care of Loki, and Loki himself is ruthlessly efficient with one goal in his mind. So it's interesting. Subtext! :D

So what do I think about this scene. I think that Loki was tortured and his back is giving out and I LOVE THIS SCENE BECAUSE IT IS SO DARK BUT TRYING NOT TO BE.

Thanos' immediate response to something not going his way is torture and he knows Loki. Knows him well enough to pick his brother out of a crowd in Infinity War and leave him alive until the end. Knows him well enough to make his death personal. Strangulation is a crime of passion. Thanos hurt Loki and he knew Loki, and the idea that Thanos made sure that Loki wouldn't see the torture coming - by doing it to his back/spine - is just an extra layer of awful. Thanos left Thor alive. On purpose. He could have killed him. He didn't.

That was Loki's punishment. Leaving Thor alone. Because Thanos knew that would hurt him the most.

But Thanos also chose to kill Loki, and in infintiny war, while hunting the stones, Thanos doesn't make any unnecessary bodies. Which to me, means that Thanos had to kill Loki because he saw Loki as a threat.

So anyway, somehow I'm talking about Loki and Thanos again, who are my favorite horrible duo and I love talking about them because their relationship is so so messed up. I wish that the Loki series had DONE something with Thanos and Loki, but they didn't. :/

But why Loki's back? Like Thanos started with Loki's head in the post-credits scene of Thor 1:

why did he move to Loki's back? Also the fact that Thanos was having Loki hunt down the Infinity Stones through astral projection and/or enchantment is just so messed up and I love it. Wish it had been explored because THIS ^^^ was the giant beast I wanted poked at in Loki season 1.

#loki #loki meta #in defense of loki #loki was tortured #loki and thanos #their relationship is THE torture/torturee dynamic to me #even including Sam and Lucifer from SPN who also have an equally messed up horrible terrible relationship #i just love the torture/torturee relationships that are just digustingly intimate in a non-romantic way #because torture for the same of torture is just business #there's something terrifying about it being personal #so anyway always happy to talk about thanos and loki #like literally always #this makes me want to write about them lol #*sighs happily* so messed up

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fla-t-line · 22 days

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#child of thanos loki #loki #jotun loki #mcu #fanart #art #avengers #myart #loki laufeyson #mcu loki #loki odinson

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linusbenjamin · 6 months

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Avengers: Infinity War // Multiverse of Madness // Loki 'Glorious Purpose'

#marveledit #tvedit #lokiedit #loki spoilers #loki #avengers: infinity war #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #wanda maximoff #kang #thanos #userelysia #tuserpolly #userlaurianne #userdiana #nikolatexla

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threadofnorns · 23 days

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Loki: Thanos knew I’d be just the one for this job ;)

Thanos, 20 minutes ago: bring me our most suicidal employee

#inspired by worstloki's reblog #loki #thanos #mcu incorrect quotes #marvel #mcu #the avengers #avengers infinity war #loki laufeyson #loki odinson

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abitofboth · 7 months

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I saw this tweet from @/forbestiel and I HAD to share!!!!!

#I think so many people don’t even know that loki was tortured to shit between thor and the avengers #one of my best friends who loves marvel to pieces had never even heard of that plot line until I told her about it #I think it’s gonna be really interesting to see how much they’re going to play into kang being a bigger threat than thanos #because so far I feel none of the characters have truly grasped how dangerous he is other than loki #loki #loki series 2 #loki spoilers #loki s2 #marvel #mcu #mobius #millie talks

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marvelgifs · 1 year

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Avengers: Infinity War (2018), dir. Anthony & Joe Russo

#marveledit #mcuedit #filmedit #movieedit #lokiedit #hiddlesedit #loki laufeyson #thanos #avengers: infinity war #aiw*#gifs #*#by polly #flashing gif

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spaceshipsandpurpledrank · 1 year

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#talkin #tik tok #mcu #menswear #marvel #black panther #killmonger #eric killmonger #loki #bucky barnes #the winter soldier #doctor octopus #doc ock #otto octavius #red hulk #thanos #kingunic2020 #1k

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silenceinternalmonologue · 1 year

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can't stop thinking about the way all of loki's brushes with death came from a choice. first the attempted suicide. then the attempted self-sacrifice. and finally a successful self-sacrifice, in which he not only threw himself in death's way but threw himself into the hands of his torturer, a being he had been hiding from for years.

people make jokes about loki always pretending to die but the truth is he is always trying to. he is convinced that his death will be a solution to other people's (mostly thor's) problems.

he is constantly choosing to die. his first instinct in any crisis situation is to solve it at the cost of his life. he doesn't seem to have any self worth or a sense that maybe it's better for him to live, and it's fucking tragic.

#loki #loki meta #there are so many root causes for this too #his belief that jotun lives are worth less #his fear of thanos #his unwillingness to show weakness #his all-consuming need to protect thor (even from himself)#he sees himself as an expendable villain to thor's undying hero #and it's breaking me apart

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abby118 · 6 months

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For the people who like to pretend this didn't happen.

#loki #the avengers #thanos #the mindstone #the sceptre #2011-2013 loki supremacy #reminder #fuck thanos

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beheworthy · 6 months

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"No resurrections this time."

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) // Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

(requested by anonymous)

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galaxythreads · 2 years

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i am literally beyond the point where I consider Loki being tortured and mind controlled in A1 to be a headcanon with gentle nodding toward canon, like. I do not think of MCU without it. The other day someone was telling me about their Loki fic and I was like “wait is this before or after they find out about the torture” and the person was just like “....what torture?” and I was like “ah.” But inwardly I was screeching.

???????????????????????? DID LOKI STRIKE YOU AS A PERSON WHO WANTED TO BE THERE????? DID WE WATCH THE SAME MOVIE??????? I literally CANNOT compute how anyone thinks Loki WASN’T tortured by Thanos anymore and I believe this is a Problem TM.

#loki #avengers 1 #loki and thanos

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worstloki · 9 days

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imagine being Thanos and you get completely conned by this Asgardian Prince sorcerer guy you tortured and left with a mind-addling infinity stone years ago and when you chase him down 10 years later you find out he wasn't even Asgardian or their Prince the entire time

#Thanos like ????????????#Loki listing off titles with the clear intention that he's only just coming to accept them as his own with Thor #and Thanos is there trying to recall proof that he was a sorcerer at least because????? huh????????????????#like Thanos doesn't care but he's been under this assumption of basic info and Loki is there like ach yea i'm blue dontcha know #Thanos is going to strangle the man either way #but like #most things about the guy went under the radar??????#Thanos like hold on you lost me 3 infinity stones AND you swindled about who you were?!?!?????#shoddy workmanship that Other guy had isn't it???#'good thing i fired him'

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fla-t-line · 3 months

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