Tag: meta

shine-of-asgard:

kaori04:

icyxmischief:

He tried so hard here to get through to Thor.

I don’t understand how the narrative always posits that Thor is the only one who tries to reconcile. Loki DOES try to reconcile, but in LOKI’S way, as LOKI is able.  Just because he can’t be the kind of good that Thor demands he be, doesn’t mean his efforts don’t count.  

Even given the script he was given, you can see Tom trying so hard to show Loki straining to reach Thor but unable to succumb just yet fully to Thor’s idea of working together.  Everything he posits here is logical and wise, but Thor won’t listen to it because Loki didn’t foolishly give up his bargaining position with the Grandmaster to be physically there.  That, and somehow, it’s “Loki’s fault” that the Nine Realms fell into disarray and Odin became weak and died, when we know from TDW that odin was already on the brink of death both physically and spiritually once Frigga had been killed.  People in the theater when I watched this AUDIBLY said “Oh, come ON” when Thor turned to Loki and blamed him.  

All unclear thinking which can be partially explained by the fact that they’re both mourning Odin–especially Thor, who was closer to Odin–but because of the odd pacing of the film, the poignancy of Odin’s death was lost the moment the scene was over.  So we’re left kind of puzzling over why Thor is being so petulant and pigheaded, when he has gone through four movies of growth now, and learned better.  

Agh man I just. So much in this movie was JUST SLIGHTLY off and somehow it all added up to the movie being a weird parody of itself which the indie pop dada tone of the script doesn’t fully explain or justify.  

Also this scene shows very well one of the main problem in their relashionship. Loki trying to reach Thor with his own ideas, thoughts, feelings. And Thor denies it instantly without thinking, cause it doesn’t match with his own perspective on things.

Basically Loki wants a brother who understands him, and Thor wants this perfect brother, his own half, who goes wherever he goes, thinks whatever he thinks, always by his side.

That’s I think also one of the reasons why Loki learned to manipulate so well and why he prefers this type of communication. Cause it always worked better.

#Hammer Drop

It also ties in the “I thought we would fight side by side forever” speech. Because it could be seen as heartwarming, but it also could be seen as Thor having no clue and no desire to learn what Loki thought or wanted and simply dragging him along into his fantasy life. Because the Loki of Thor 1 doesn’t look like he even likes physical fighting, but of course Thor would fail to notice such a basic detail about his own brother.

This scene used to make me angry at Loki but now I’m just sad. Sad that Frigga felt personally slighted when Loki disowned himself of Odin (who disowned him first).  Sad that she felt she had to emotionally coerce him into picking both parents or neither.  Sad that Loki had to stand his ground even when he knew it would hurt his mother. 

@juliabohemian every time I try to reblog your posts Tumblr won’t let me, but I know you don’t have me blocked so this is a strange conundrum indeed. Anyway you posted something that just circulated my dash and I spent a while making an addition, so here it is: 

Not to compound your heartache, but I’ve been writing about this stuff since 2012 and it’s even worse than that.  

The entire Thor narrative has brought Odin’s family full circle back to where they began in 2011′s first film.  I mean this in terms of filial dynamics and discrete roles within a dysfunctional family structure.  Not only is Loki still always the responsible party for everyone’s missteps and crimes, the “progress” that the family has made is actually a regression that reinforces his scapegoat role.

This is why when others are endlessly celebratory about the moment in Infinity War during which Loki refers to himself as “Odinson,” I cringe.

Because Loki WAS allowed a redemption, in Ragnarok, and then, in Infinity War: but one contingent upon Thor’s, and, by extension, Odin’s, idea of what connotes heroism (and, even though Mjolnir is long gone, “worthiness”).   Loki became a hero when Loki stopped having his own thoughts about what to do after Hela’s invasion, when he stopped having ANY healthy notions of self-preservation, and when he followed THOR’S plan to defeat Hela.  ONLY when Loki emulated Thor did Loki become a hero.  The one thing that has always driven Loki to lack inner peace has been incessant negative comparison to Thor.  So it’s only in an extremely toxic message of SELF-ERASURE that he completes the Thor films’ narrative of “healing” and “redemption.”  Just like when Odin imprisoned both Hela and Loki under Asgard, to ritually erase them both from the fabric of his family tree, only FAR more subtle and insidious, by giving him NO OTHER OPTION FOR LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE BY HIS SOLE LIVING FAMILY MEMBER (Thor) EXCEPT TO “CHOOSE” TO STAND AND FIGHT (AND DIE) AT THOR’S SIDE.  

Loki is only granted redemption when Loki IS NO LONGER LOKI.

 And the freakiest part about this is that the broader Marvel audience has accepted this as “evidence” that Loki “was a hero all along” and it is the ONE THING that has made fans lighten up on hating him.  The story stuffed Loki, who is a marvelous gray-amoral antihero, in a hero box–and not just ANY HERO BOX, but the box labeled “ultimate self-sacrifice in death, even against characterization and logic.”

Think about it.  

–What was Loki in Thor 1?  A passive receptacle for Thor’s warmongering and impulsivity, who must “shut up” and “know his place” at all times, whose plans to divert Thor from a disastrous place on the Throne were thinly veiled by the “heroes” as “treason” and “a whiny jealous younger brother’s petty vendetta.”  

–What was Loki in The Dark World?  A prisoner Odin and Thor genuinely hoped the world would forget, whose inconvenient truths about mirroring his father and brother’s warmongering on a protected (translate: already “owned”–claimed by Thor as “his” because of Jane Foster)  territory of Asgard (Midgard) got him thrown in prison for life. Odin was angrier that Loki brought up these truths of Odin’s hypocrisy than he was that Loki tried to take Midgard as his own.  Because unlike Thor, Odin couldn’t control Loki’s cognitions and beliefs. He never could.   And when was Loki released from prison? Only when he became useful to Thor.  A passive receptacle, being retrained as such, being told his mission basically to escape Thanos’s abuse with Midgard as a consolation prize was basically just a “childish tantrum” for which he should be gaslit and punished. And when was Loki forgiven? When did Thor weep for him, and say he’d take memory of his noble deeds to their father?  ONLY when it appeared he had made a self-sacrifice in extremis, and was dying.

–What was Loki in Ragnarok?  A traitor and a laughable clown. How dare he lay around eating grapes and watching theater that craftily reinvented his image to a previously disdainful populace?  How dare he SURVIVE?  Thor is angrier at Loki for surviving, seemingly, than he is relieved! Simply because Loki didn’t die for him, so of course, to Thor, it’s tantamount to another betrayal, it can’t be anything in between total self-effacement and total selfishness: it isn’t all about Thor, God forbid!  Loki must be again a passive receptacle! How dare he cunningly outwit all of that lifelong conditioning to be silent and obeisant?  So Thor acts juvenile, and emotionally strongarms Loki (yep, electrocution scene) and refuses to speak to him, and unfairly blames him for Hela’s return (WHEN IT’S ODIN WHO RAISED HELA TO BE A MONSTER AND THEN IMPRISONED HER! but if you’re groomed to be a narcissist by your father and emotionally dependent on your father’s praise then you can’t turn on your father, EVER) untilllll? Loki shows up with a ship from Sakaar and fights on Thor’s behalf.  

“If you were here I’d give you a hug” translates to “If you would only abide by MY rules for what connotes a good person (cause after all Thor knows best, right? ‘That’s what heroes do!’) then I’d reward you for it.”  And the whole movie ends with Loki going “I’m here” which is tantamount to saying “I YIELD.”

PASSIVE. RECEPTACLE.

Ergo Odin remains the benevolent all-controlling patriarch.
Ergo Thor remains the petulant narcissist who always gets his way.
Ergo Frigga, dead, is more absent from stopping the toxicity than ever, because fridging!
Ergo, Loki remains the silent scapegoat.

Seven. Years. Of films.  And counting.

“psychopath” My butt. I fully believe Loki’s problem is that he feels so much, so when “slighted” he reacts tenfold (which also means he loves a lot)

//Yes.  Exactly. 

About four years ago, a flurry of anons challenged me when I said that I wished Tom Hiddleston would stop batting around the term “psychopath” to describe Loki, even if under duress from the Marvel execs, because of the highly ableist nature of the term.  It’s not only clinically outdated, it’s also too often used in popular lingo interchangeably with “crazy” and “evil.”   The problem inherent to this is that clinical insanity–perhaps more sensitively deemed “mental illness”–is an entirely discrete dimension of personhood from ethical compass.   

But even if the term “psychopath” were still in clinical circulation, if you go down the whole checklist, it doesn’t apply to Loki even remotely.  Click the link for my post that I recirculated about two years ago.  

ksclaw:

masterfulxrhythm:

cumonthevoid:

why did they give this line to the villain

Because they often give the villain the lines that are socially subversive but true, in order to get them past the censors. 

Which is incidentally what makes villains often far more relatable than heroes. 

I’m reminded of something Tim Curry said on voicing villains. “The fact is though, that bad guys are often much better written than the good guys, and they’re kind of irresistible because they’re so much fun!”

All true but it’s even more than that.  There is a long-established precedent in media, from books to films to comics, and more, in which the villain speaks the inconvenient truths of what is wrong with society.  And it’s considered permissible because the narrative can eschew what the villain says as ridiculous or even perverse. 

Sometimes this is especially insidious, as in the case with Cruella, because even though Cruella is wrong in THAT specific context/example, there is truth to the patriarchal standard of marriage sometimes being abused in favor of men’s pursuits, at the expense of women’s happiness.  

But since a “bitch” (a very weaponized gendered slur originally used by straight men) said it, we can laugh her off as “crazy.”

This is embedded in other forms of problematized social identity/issues: there is an entire history, for instance, of what is called “queercoding” in villainy, so that LGBT identities can be present in the narrative, but are less threatening to a straight cisgender audience because, again, if the message gets too threatening, the villain and the message both can be written off.

And don’t even get me started on things like “the angry black woman” whose rage is WHOLLY justified, but we laugh her off as insane and disruptive to social peace. 

I think everyone knows why I reblogged these comments to my Loki blog. 

lokiperfection:

The tears in his eyes. My heart!

Everyone’s going on about how Infinity War Loki was depowered and useless and was a “lazy whiny twink until his dad yelled at him that one time” and is so “pathetic” compared to comics Loki and I’m just like:

1) Consider this:
2) No.
3) There is still a strong chance that Infinity War Loki is already involved in a plot to revise events in time, to the point that the plot twist is blatantly obvious, rendering this entire scene a clever act that is part of the long con,
4) Last time I checked self-sacrifice on behalf of a loved one wasn’t “pathetic,” EVEN THOUGH I AGREE THAT LOKI DOING SO SENDS AN UNHEALTHY MESSAGE THAT HEROISM ONLY EXISTS IN EXTREMIS,
5) Can we please not behave as if Loki led a charmed silver-spoon life free of emotional and psychological complication before the events of the first Thor movie, and that it was just Odin “yelling at” Loki that prompted a genuine nervous breakdown? Or are we just gonna be ableist like that lmao. 

Normally I stay quiet about this stuff these days but I honestly can’t stand this new popular trend in interpreting the character.  It’s like no matter how he’s written someone will find a way to continue hating him lmfao. 

Hey, so like…

lokiperfection:

darthwindows:

lokilover9:

lokiloveforever:

seiramili7:

timetravellingshinigami:

nikkoliferous:

asgardiankingofmischief:

nikkoliferous:

Does anyone want to talk about how ridiculous it is that Valkyrie, of all people, shames Loki for not caring about doing the right thing?

Loki: I don’t mean to impose…
(Valkyrie throws a bottle at him because violence is only bad if The Villain™ does it)
Loki: The Grandmaster has a great many ships. I may even have stolen the access codes to his security system.
Valkyrie: And suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing?

You know… the same woman who spent half this movie also avoiding Thor’s attempts to gain her aid? The one who only decided to help out about five minutes prior to this scene? The one who arguably never would have wound up helping had Loki not invaded her memories, thus jolting her out of complacency? That Valkyrie?

Yeah, and considering her history in enslaving people for the Grandmaster runs about 1000 or so years? Maybe more, I can’t recall, she doesn’t really have the moral high ground. 

In fact, Loki attempting to capture Thor and surrender him to the Grandmaster is more in line with something that Valkyrie would likely pursue (considering her time in Sakaar). Maybe they should have made her more difficult to convince. 

Her comment/question is rather out of place also and would have to assume that she’s familiar with Loki to the level that Thor or Hulk (cause of NY) are. 

I can only assume she said it in retaliation to what Loki did with her mind, but, in my opinion, she probably would have said something else. 

Or they could have validated that she wasn’t necessarily trustworthy too. 

It just felt like more of Taika’s lazy story-telling to me, as opposed to Valkyrie getting back at him for the whole ‘invading my mind’ thing. (But hey, don’t invade people’s brains, kids. It’s quite rude). I personally viewed it more as like, “hey, we haven’t reminded people that Loki’s a bad egg in the last 3 minutes or so; better let someone have a dig at his loose morals” sort of BS that is honestly just rampant in Thor: Ragnarok. 

Like, I know Ragnarok critics get labelled conspiracy theorists for thinking (or at least speaking as though) Taika just had it out for Loki and wanted to degrade him as much as possible. And I get it, that sounds objectively insane. But just, looking at the narrative of the film itself, it’s… hard not to get that impression? And there’s really no other indicator in that movie–unless I’m forgetting something–that anyone on Sakaar (not including Thor and Bruce, obviously) has a clue who Loki really is. I guess it’s possible that they do, but there’s no evidence that that’s the case. More show & tell problems in this film.

I actually do want to address the ‘betraying Thor for money’ thing, though. Because I see a lot of people complaining that it’s completely out of character for Loki to do so for the money, and I actually have a different take on it. We all know Loki is rarely able to just be honest about what’s going on in his head. That’s essentially what the entire conflict between him and Thor has been fueled by for all this time, really. So I kind of headcanon that Loki might have told Thor that it was for the money, but I personally believe that in reality, it was actually Loki’s last-ditch effort to save his brother. Even as strong as he and Thor both are, individually and together, he did not believe Hela was an enemy that they could defeat (which is technically true)–especially now that she’s all cozy on Asgard, where she’ll be even stronger than when they first met her. Loki already failed once to talk Thor into staying on Sakaar of his own free will; I think betraying him was Loki’s way of trying to keep him safe from Hela by any means necessary.

I also think that deceptiveness can extend to his fight with Valkyrie too. A lot of Loki fans complain about her being able to take him captive so easily, but I choose to believe he lost to her intentionally. Easy ticket to finding his brother. He is the trickster god. Why are we suddenly taking him at face value all the time?

Admittedly, when it comes to Thor: Ragnarok, it’s super hard to decide when Loki is acting out of character because he’s running a scheme and when he’s doing it because of bad writing.

People actually call Loki stans (the true Loki stans) and people who don’t like Ragnarok as idiots just ‘cause we analyzed the movie from start to finish. Most of these people who insult us are new to the fandom and only saw Ragnarok. And even if they saw the other Thor movies they don’t remember it or for some reason they don’t like it. They just here for the jokes and, me, who is someone who’s here for depth of character, good storytelling and just pure emotion cannot deal with people like that.

Valkyrie is a good character but i wish people wouldn’t forget that she has done more wrong than Loki. She’s captured slaves for the Grandmaster for centuries. But of course she’s a hero like Thor and can do no wrong. Also people keep forgetting that the Grandmaster himself is a despot and a tyrant who has no mercy or respect for life. But you know he talks funny and so its all okay.

You know… the same woman who spent half this movie also avoiding Thor’s attempts to gain her aid? The one who only decided to help out about five minutes prior to this scene? The one who arguably never would have wound up helping had Loki not invaded her memories, thus jolting her out of complacency? That Valkyrie? 

In fact, Valkyrie’s own words about “

suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing?

“ itself applies accurately to what Valkyrie was doing exactly at that time. 

And to be honest, Valkyrie is a hypocrite. Considering about her own deeds that sold many non-guilty people into slavery and causing those people’s deaths for thousands years, and the fact that she knows almost nothing about Loki himself, she has absolutely no right to judge Loki and then acts like she has never done anything wrong in her life, ever. 

Valkyrie is a good character but i wish people wouldn’t forget that she has done more wrong than Loki. She’s captured slaves for the Grandmaster for centuries. But of course she’s a hero like Thor and can do no wrong. Also people keep forgetting that the Grandmaster himself is a despot and a tyrant who has no mercy or respect for life. But you know he talks funny and so its all 🆗. 

People often forget about her actions because the narrative never call it. The narrative of Ragnarok want to condemn Loki only out of other characters and exaggerating his “evilness” into stereotype and caricature-like so people start to regard him as only “a mere background character who is just an useless twink who have no dignity and just nothing but a pest to Thor the Perfect ‘Hero’ with no absolute importance other than being fan-service”. That’s why they’re so many double standards in Ragnarok especially regarding Loki. 

@lucianalight  @juliabohemian  @welle-nijordottir

Waititi did have it in for Loki, he admitted it. He said Loki’s treatment and humiliation was “payback” for overshadowing the other movies. Everything, from that stupid play, to the deleted port o potty scene, to being chained up and having glass bottles thrown at his head, to Thor’s triumphant obedience disc scene was all a reflection of exactly how Waititi feels about Loki. “Blah, blah, blah, shut up, space orphan” “Loki tries so hard to be this tortured, artistic, space orphan”. Waititi’s not subtle about it. He thinks all the little Loki lovers are idiots. He meant out to “respectfully” disrespect the other movies, and extend a middle finger to those of us whose favorite character wasn’t Thor. It’s funny how, in that scene where Loki is sitting there chained up, nobody there, not Thor, not Bruce or Valkyrie, have any right to stand there and judge Loki. Valkyrie was just as much a “lackey” of the Grandmaster, if not moreso, because she worked for him and enslaved people for him for a long, long, time. She knew about the orgy ship too, and was obviously in high favor with the grandmaster. But yet in that scene, suddenly Thor, Bruce and Valkyrie are the spotless heroes with the right to look down their noses at Loki? No. 

What I also find bothersome about Lokis treatment in Ragnarok is wondering how Tom took it. No one knows really and we may never, yet I can’t help but think it affected him negatively on some level, after devoting so much time, talent and heart into the character. I’d certainly be insulted and secretly pissed. And yes, Sakaar must’ve dwelled within the boonies of space, as I too found it odd no one there ever recognized Loki. A form of subliminal messaging, perhaps? 

Let us not forget please that Taika is not completely to blame. Hemsworth specifically asked for Taika because he was mad about how Tom overshadowed him in TDW because he did a shitty job and was tired of playing Thor like how it was written. Hemsy requested Taika. Which might be why Tom and Hemsworth aren’t tight anymore.

@icyxmischief

Thanks for @ing me ❤ this stuff means a lot to me and I keep somehow missing out on these newer conversations.

I’ve said a whole lot about this before actually, which I won’t rehash, save to say maybe take a gander at my Ragnarok critical and meta tags and perhaps in particular my post about why I disliked Infinity War LESS than I disliked Ragnarok, specifically, in terms of how Loki was written. 

A couple of outstanding points that I’d like to compliment, however: 

–The notion that Loki was trying to save Thor’s life by obstructing Thor from leaving Sakaar, while pretending that it was about money, is one that I find is indeed a rare bit of in-character behavior from a Waititi!Loki.   I would even go so far as to say that Loki is not entirely aware himself that this is his own deeper motive.  He is forever acting counter to his tendency to protect his brother, not because he doesn’t love Thor, but because Loki tries to abide by a code of self-preservation, and protecting Thor so often runs counter to that goal.  So well thought out point there, @nikkoliferous 

–Like   @darthwindows, I’ve also  had a lower opinion of Chris Hemsworth since reading his interviews, which come across as self-absorbed and immature, when Tom Hiddleston (who is actually older and has much more extensive film and stage credentials) took him under his wing when he was new to the industry, to actively seek a way to make Loki seem a weaker character in order to prop up Thor. Any time you weaken a strong character to strengthen a weak character, it shows that you are an inferior writer.  And “revamping” Thor by making him a flippant, entitled asshole who coerced not only Loki, but also Valkyrie and especially Bruce, with charm, is not only a perversion of the character, but a REGRESSION that effectively erases an attempt at character development over four previous films (Thor 1, TDW, Avengers 1, and Avengers 2).  Then tellingly, Chris complained about the return of Thor to “old Thor” in Infinity War, when frankly Infinity War Thor struck me as way more sympathetic.  I think it’s sad that Chris effectively damaged, by neglect, Tom’s many years of labor on a breakthrough role in order to cope with feelings of insecurity about his own performance.   Amusingly, I think in the long run that’s backfired; Loki is more popular than ever, albeit for reasons that don’t always coincide with the Loki “Stan” motives.  

–  @lokiloveforever Yes you have it right on the money, Waititi absolutely dislikes Loki.  For whatever reason he has an axe to grind with the character.  His background is that of a socially and politically liberal person of color and that has been an asset in the work that he has directed and written; people have even written on how his Maori heritage is uniquely and usefully counter-authority and that his sense of humor is excellent in dismantling colonialist ideas of power structure. THAT SAID?  In this case, for some reason, he has misapprehended Loki as a whiny privileged white boy who imagines up all of his problems, rather than what he has always been in both the films and the comics: coded as Other in many ways that the audience can vibrantly relate to (queer; a person of color–yes, I do think the Jotnar are a metaphor for what an imperialist Asgard sees as a subaltern or “lesser” race, which makes the “my blue baby” play especially repugnant; the victim of bullying; and mentally ill from trauma).  It’s almost like because Tom is white, affluent, and handsome, Waititi thinks the character leads an equally blessed life (which is hilariously ironic given how people like Waititi tell “Loki fangirls” that they only like Loki because Tom is an attractive straight-coded man :))) ).  

–I think Valkyrie is an important character for her bi and POC representation, but this does not make her above reproach, and it shouldn’t.  That said I’m not sure that when she accused Loki of hypocrisy she was saying she was not also a hypocrite; I read it more as “I know you, you’re an asshole like me.”  Even so, yeah, she’s really not in a position to talk, and throwing solid breakable objects at him for simply being helpful made her less than sympathetic to me in that particular scene. But like OP says, “if the heroes are doing it, it’s excusable,” including, apparently, emotional coercion and violence (don’t even get me started on the punishment disc Thor left on Loki causing him to writhe in agony for hours: Waititi also has very little regard for people with PTSD, apparently).  

lokihiddleston:

Ebony Maw: “Hear me, and rejoice. You have had the privilege of
being saved by the great Titan. You may think this is suffering. No. It
is salvation. Universal scales tipped toward balance because of your
sacrifice. Smile, for even in death, you have become children of Thanos.”

If you don’t think Squidward was the one who physically tortured and  psychologically indoctrinated Loki in the deranged nonsense he was spewing in Avengers Assemble, you’re wrong. 

itsallavengers:

probsjosh:

stream:

jchamphero:

zooweamama:

stream:

dorkasaurus-spiritus:

parks-and-rex:

kevinburnsred:

stream:

“But, you see, it was just fate that you survived it…you had one last golden egg to give.

“

always thought that Obadiah looked like Thanos

*pants nervously* OHhhhhHHHHHhhH lordieeeee

I’ve also noticed that both of them have a similar line in their movies

Obadiah: I never had a taste for this sorta thing, but I must admit, I’m deeply enjoying the suit.

Thanos: fun isn’t something one considers when balancing the universe, but this? Does put a smile on my face.

Obadiah didn’t die in the arc reactor explosion but instead was warped to Titan memory wiped and grew into a big purple man

okay but….

The theory grows

i’d actually like to draw attention to the fact that these villains are similar in that they are deeply violative of the personal and emotional space, even the bodies, of others.  they both literally reach into other people and remove their life source; they both believe that their self-serving ends are also for a “greater good,” be it an arms company’s survival or the universe.  both are essentially serial rapists, even if they do not necessarily commit the sexual act.  what they do steals and violates from the most intimate parts of others. they are predators. 

and the people who survive their assaults are very, very strong, and very, very brave.