this moment is actually much more than a moment of sass. For the trainwreck that was this movie, these lines are brilliant because they DUALLY confirm his acceptance of himself, and his burial of a hatchet. In other words, this is Loki’s two-pronged detente:
1) with his inner war of self-hatred, for being a Jotun (”I’m not Asgardian,” openly directing all those witnessing his almost certain death to his true heritage)
and
2) with his outer feud against the Avengers ( “we have a Hulk,” tacitly quoting Tony Stark, and citing the moment that his worthy adversaries defeated him: people who are, in part, adversaries no more).
This was truly a seminal moment in Loki’s personal development.
This is an act of defiance, and one of heroism, for as futile as the endeavor may seem for all practical purposes, Loki DENIES Thanos’s power over him (the power of his abuser, and so many others’), by LOVING HIMSELF: EVERY part of himself.
–Who issued the distress call in the very, very beginning? Does anyone know?
–Anyone who thinks Loki wasn’t abused by Thanos need only hear the first line uttered by his minion in the first scene: “Hear me and rejoice. You have had the privilege of being saved by the Great Titan. You may think this is suffering, but no. It is salvation.” This is the most simultaneously deranged and manipulative thing that I’ve ever heard. And you can’t tell me that in his long quest to destroy half the population of the universe, Thanos didn’t command that ALL HIS FIELDMARSHALS be indoctrinated in this warped ideology of SALVATION THROUGH SUFFERING AND DEATH. Who does that sound like? “I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose/Freedom is life’s great lie/You were made to be ruled.” Now we understand the context in which he spoke words that were so breathtakingly out-of-character; to many Loki fans this has been obvious from the start, but now you can see openly how Thanos twisted Loki’s own bitterness and insecurity to his own purpose. Loki was fresh from physical and psychological torture–and we know that canonically Thanos can warp people’s memories to his will as well.
–-I mean, “Smile (interestingly a tactic often used by misogynists/rape culture on women!), for even in death you have been made CHILDREN OF THANOS,” and it cuts to LOKI watching the speaker. LOKI WAS MADE A CHILD OF THANOS, like Gamora and Nebula, like God knows how many other MISFITS THANOS COLLECTED LIKE ANTIQUES TO BE ABUSED TO HIS ENDS. HEY HEY! REMEMBER LOKI’S LINE TO *ODIN*: “SO I AM NO MORE THAN ANOTHER STOLEN RELIC?” no fucking wonder this worked on him! Maybe he believed for the better part of his adulthood that father figures who masquerade as benign dictators are MEANT to use the sons they only conditionally “love.” Amen Gamora: “THIS IS NOT LOVE.” THANOS COLLECTS *PEOPLE* LIKE HE COLLECTS INFINITY STONES. May he die screaming for the love he never gave.
–Thanos picks up Thor while soliloquizing about losing, invoking both Loki’s failure in New York and his failure to protect Thor. Loki is so brave to stand there in front of the figure of his nightmares and feign disinterest.
–I hope people realize that Loki was never going to give Thanos Thor for the Tesseract, and was instead stalling for the Hulk (wherever the fuck the Hulk was, what the hell, writers! T_T; ) to come attack Thanos so he could pull Thor to safety???? I hope nobody actually thinks that at THIS point in his character development, Loki would sell Thor out. Look at his visible distress, he screams “Alright STOP!” at the top of his lungs. And then he closes his eyes. And God, he does that out of FRUSTRATION AT HIMSELF, that his love for Thor is and always has been so great that ultimately it trumps his legendary survival and self-preservation.
–Are we never going to address that Loki stole the Tesseract as a failsafe, IN ORDER TO TRANSPORT PEOPLE LOL SAFELY ACROSS SPACE *AWAY* FROM THREATS LIKE THANOS, then never fucking USED the thing????? Making him look like an imbecile AND a selfish traitor haha? HA? GOD.
–”I assure you brother, the sun will shine on us again” is delivered with amazing skill, and the slightest quaver of fear and sorrow.
–Okay I lost my composure at Heimdall’s death and started sobbing. What a needless character sacrifice.
–Wheeeeere did Loki go? There is no way Loki is off screen for no reason. This is the moment when something will be explained in Avengers 4. I hope it means Loki’s survival or resurrection but regardless of whether it does, something is happening off-camera, or otherwise Thor would have been allowed in the narrative/camera work to spot where Loki is hiding.
–Thor: “You’re going to die for that!” Woooow I am crying harder now!
–Are Thanos’s simpering lackeys supposed to make me viscerally despise him even more than I already do because their rambly praise is certainly achieving that end.
–Yeah he is WAY too cocky and bouncy when he returns. Although this could also be the cruelty of the Russo narrative, giving us hope that Loki has a foolproof plan and will survive the scene, making it even more shocking when he doesn’t.
–”I consider experience experience,” sick burn baby ❤ I love you with all my heart.
–Okay losing my shit again because when he turns to Thor and says “Odinson,” LOKI IS BRACING THOR FOR LOKI’S OWN DEATH. He knows he’s going to die here. Whether he hatched a plan off screen or just knows this is futile. He is bracing his big brother to lose him just as he lost his father, his people, his home, and his best friend Heimdall. And then he bows his head with TEARS in his eyes because he knows, “here is my last shot, and here is my end.”
–”You will never be a god” LIKE ME. Tell him. I love you for your courage. I love you.
–”No resurrections this time” is a taunt to the audience but it’s ALSO A TACIT NOD TO WHAT HAPPENED IN THE DARK WORLD, and possibly also btween Thor 1 and Avengers Assemble, because how else would Thanos KNOW Loki had resurrected?
–Thor crawling to Loki’s body because he has one small sliver of hope that he’s faking it :’)
–Okay, merely one scene in: I feel like this movie is dangerously suited to the hopelessness of our times. And it was unnecessary and foolish to make it. All it has done is add to the despair of its audience, who saw various heroes and antiheroes within this franchise as a reflection of their hopes, and a form of escape from life’s pain. It’s shameful that all this suffering and sorrow were written SOLELY to make money off of the next film’s fix-it plot.
This whole scene was well-acted but poorly-written, poorly because everything, including characterization and plot, was subservient to making the audience hurt as much as possible.
Yeah, on the real I’m these bitches’ idol Gotta be dumb to make me your rival ‘Cause I’m too powerful, yeah you not powerful So say your prayers ‘cause you ’bout to die slow Die slow, die slow Jealousy is a disease, d i e s l o w Die slow, die slow Tell her that jealousy is a disease, die slow -Nicki Minaj
“ ‘Choose my words wisely’? Oh, but, my dear Thanos: I h a v e.”
Say, Thanos, I recall you telling your adopted space daughter (who you routinely abused, by the way) that her home planet of Zehoberei was now thriving because you killed half its population – including her birth mother – because ‘balance was restored’.
Do you know what I think about that?
I think it’s nothing more than a
BIG
FAT
LIE!!!
So apparently her planet prospered to the point everyone spontaneously died? Troll-logic yourself out of that one, you insane oversized prune.
Welll… TECHNICALLY he would point out that
No one is starving on that world
The crime rate is reduced to zero
The economy is very stable.
Pollution is no longer a problem.
It’s all in the spin….
i mean, as the last survivor has twelve counts of murder, in actuality the crime rate is 100%, so- how’s it going, thanos
Murder isn’t a crime if the last person makes the rules
….does anyone else notice parallels between Odin kidnapping and “saving” Loki, and Thanos kidnapping and “saving” Gamora? Objectively, without a doubt, Thanos was the worse parent. But so many people draw parallels between Loki and Nebula, and Thor and Gamora, because of birth order, and which sibling was favored.
Yet I wonder if anyone has ever considered the way that both Odin and Thanos are “benevolent fathers” to the kingdoms they slaughter and colonize, and the way they took the ultimate ransom by indoctrinating children of those conquered peoples in their own culture, remaking them in their own image. There is no greater “power move” against a culture you conquer–it’s even got echoes of eugenics.
//Hot take but if you think Ebony Maw, a sorcerer who is proficient at torture and brainwashing, the vanguard of Thanos’s Piece of Shit Brigade, didn’t torture Loki–who visibly recognized him in the beginning of Infinity War–in the same ways that he tortured Dr. Strange, to get something Thanos wanted (maybe “is there something in Asgard’s Vault that the Great Thanos could use?”), before handing him off to the Other and giving him the “consolation prize” of the Mind Stone with which to conquer earth, then youuuuuu haven’t watched the same movie I have.
I now have a concrete face to put to the name of Loki’s torturers while he was under Thanos’s control. The reason why he looked like this
at the end of Thor 1. The reason why he stumbled and fell and suffered from heat exhaustion in Avengers Assemble, and looked like a living corpse. It wasn’t just the effects of traveling through the Tesseract. Tom Hiddleston said Loki was put through physical and psychological abuse (and my meta tag is full of essays that more thoroughly deconstruct this theory), but he didn’t yet know who the characters were that exacted these methods; they hadn’t been written yet. Now it’s clear it’s Ebony Maw.
Yes that look Loki gave him said it all.
Not to mention the way Ebony talks sounded a lot like Loki did in Avengers when giving his speech in Stuttgart and at the beginning. Like someone who had been indoctrinated.
icyxmischief 