lokis-tiny-teacup:

rewritefate:

juliabohemian:

philosopherking1887:

illwynd:

me: seeing a post where thor fans insult loki and loki fans and say they don’t want thor to ever interact with loki on screen again

and loki fans replying by insulting thor and thor fans and saying they don’t want thor to ever interact with loki on screen again

i think neither of y’all actually understand your “fave” character much do you

I understand the Loki fans’ POV far more, but I still can’t get behind the “Thor has only been bad for him and he should extricate himself from his relationship with Thor entirely” attitude.

I’m just repeating what @illwynd has said before, but: watch how they interact in Thor: The Dark World. Thor trusts Loki, and Loki lives up to that trust. Thor swears up and down that he doesn’t trust Loki, but he’s full of it. Watch his actions. He trusts Loki. That movie shows Thor and Loki working together, fighting together, trusting each other, neither sacrificing his individuality to the other’s demands. Their plan takes advantage of Loki’s distinctive talents: the ability to cast illusions and lie convincingly; the unexpected double-cross. Even his heroic self-sacrifice is very much in his own style: while (apparently fatally) impaled, he has the ingenuity and presence of mind to use his proximity to turn on Kurse’s own black hole grenade.

The mutual trust, the casual bickering, the cooperative strategic use of their complementary abilities: that, we can imagine, is what their relationship was like before Thor’s selection as heir caused his head to swell to the size we see in Thor 1.

I think for me personally…I would say that up until the end of TDW I was on board with Loki and Thor emerging as a unit. Because it was that relationship that drew me in to begin with. Two things changed my position: Thor’s treatment of Loki in Ragnarok and Chris Hemsworth’s attitude towards the previous Thor films and the franchise in general. Both rubbed me the wrong way. The second made me realize that if CH felt a certain way about Loki, that his attitude would inevitably show through in any interaction between their characters from that point on. It made me wonder if perhaps the only chance Loki has for genuine recovery is to get away from Thor altogether.

When someone is actively trying to recover from trauma, they are usually advised to cut ties with anyone who is either not in favor of their recovery or actively working against it. Ragnarok Thor qualifies on both accounts. When someone is in a dysfunctional relationship with another person and tries to change the status quo, the other party often resists in order to maintain that status quo. And that’s not even addressing the fact that Thor has yet to acknowledge Loki’s trauma. But that is the basis for my position on the matter.

I’m afraid that the MCU won’t recognized the dysfunctional dynamic between Thor and Loki and still continue with that “brotherly” relationship in Ragnarok. I rather have Thor not to interact with Loki again in TV series than seeing their dysfunctional relationship that are presented in Ragnarok continue (even though I really want to see Thor and Loki to reconciled). It’s the best for both of them. 

I think for a true reconciliation, there needs to be some acknowledgement on Thor’s part of Loki’s pain and his role in contributing to it, which is something we never got in the course of the films. Thor’s needs to recognize that Loki’s feelings, perspectives, and strengths are real and have value, even if it means Loki won’t always be exactly the type of brother Thor wants. Thor and Loki need to have a conversation like the one Gamora and Nebula had at the end of GOTG2, but I don’t see the MCU ever giving us that. 

And from a behind-the-scenes standpoint, I really think CH resented TH’s popularity and played a big role in the way Loki was degraded in TR. And I think TH may have felt stung by that. I think creatively speaking both would prefer to take their characters in different directions- CH doing more Thor with TW and TH wanting to explore Loki’s character in more dramatic depth, so separating the two characters for a while makes the most sense. 

This whole thread is really important and explains my conflict over choosing  between A) “Thor and Loki are an inextricable unit and mutually beneficial and both fucked up in discrete ways by Odin’s toxic parenting” and B) “said toxic parenting makes exposure to Thor generally worse for Loki than exposure to Loki is for Thor.”  It explains that conflict really well. 

You can’t really analyze either character OR both as a unit without being deeply informed and aware about the ENTIRE dysfunctional family dynamic.  More than any other Marvel protags, Thor and Loki can’t be divorced from their context and fully understood.  

If you try to, you get half-assed, ignorant opinions, such as that by a certain director who said that because as princes they experience certain social privileges, we “shouldn’t be concerned” about the trauma Thor and Loki have both undergone.  

I also agree that CH’s resentments toward TH have been embarrassingly apparent lately (TH is honestly, in general, just a more accomplished actor) and that it’s in some ways disintegrated the legendary bond between their characters for me, which is quite sad.