Tag: odin

I know it’ll never happen, but I really wish we could see Loki and Nebula interact (positively) in the MCU. They have so much in common and I think they could relate to each other’s struggles. Both were rejected by a father who favored their sibling; both “hated” their sibling and fought with them but eventually reconciled. (Although Gamora eventually realized than Thanos was a terrible father, while Thor, unfortunately, still seems to believe that he and Odin did nothing wrong.)

^^^^ Couldn’t have said it better in its totality myself.   Nebula could even be like “that’s rough, buddy” when Loki confided to her that Thor continued to adulate Odin because it’s less painful of a cognitive dissonance for Thor to think Loki is the bad apple and Odin is the gruff but well-meaning patriarch.  

There are stunning similarities between Odin and Thanos, particularly when you take into account Odin’s reign of “benevolent” imperialism, which was finally made explicit in Ragnarok despite all of Ragnarok’s narrative flaws.  The only difference between Odin and Thanos is:
A) scale of genocide
B) Odin was a cunning pragmatist who knew he was wrong and concealed it systematically, and Thanos was a mad ideologue who fully believed his cause was noble and justified. Not sure which is worse, since the effects are the same: a lot of innocent people dead, and your own children totally fucked up.  

….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.  

“You have to know, I did what I thought was best. You can’t blame me for that.” (Notes from the father, Odin)

icyxmischief:

Send my muse a message from their father.

Loki is at first so paralyzed by his rage that he cannot muster a 
syllable. 

It isn’t Odin’s presumption to apologize that kindles that rage.
It’s his claim that he holds no accountability whatsoever in 
the debacle that is their family.  

        “Oh, ‘Allfather,’ I can blame you.”  

A brief, mirthless snap of laughter escapes him, a forced cackle
so unlike his true, breathy snicker.  It is hard and raw and bitter,
like everything that he feels for the man that somehow, he mustered
the mercy to deposit addled in a retirement home on Midgard.  

Not that Thor noticed the  restraint that Loki still showed
Odin, the remaining scraps of compassion that he could summon
for the man who had been an ever-present fixture of his childhood
(if only to be distant, and demanding, and never-satisfied, while
Frigga salvaged what could be saved of Loki’s mauled self-esteem).
No, the moment Odin ascended to Valhalla, Thor summoned an
involuntary storm and called the whole affair Loki’s fault.  

Old habits, old habits.  

image

       “I can blame you for paying me heed only to throw me into 
        inferior relief against my dearest friend and brother, ROBBING
       US BOTH of the camaraderie we might have better shared!  
        I can blame you for stealing me from my birth home only to
        prop me up as a convenient backup option should your 
        CONSTANT! GREEDY! Mining of other Realms’ resources and
        infrastructures come to naught, so you could trade me off 
        with some other artifact to APPEASE the INSURGENT MASSES.
        You were a POOR king, and a POORER father, and Thor and I
        BOTH suffered for it, even if he is too blinded by his romanticized
         memories of you to ever see that.   

         No, I cannot blame you for what I did, 
         
                 but I CAN blame you

                             for what YOU did!”  

So good, so kind, so benevolent, the father of all things,
so benign as he exploits the people under his feet, with
blood on his hands. 

May his guilty memories eat him alive.  
May he choke on his feast in Valhalla. 

I am sorry. —Odin

icyxmischief:

Send my muse a message from their father.

image

Three words. All he had ever searched for. All Odin had never
been willing to impart. Miserly even in his last hours, even with
Frigga’s gentling spirit calling to him.  

And here they are, those three words.  

Loki thinks on the man whose good opinion he once fixated 
upon with such agonies that it festered into a desire for his
own ill-gotten kingdom on earth.  He thinks on the moment
he heard no, and fell, and fell, and f e l l … . shattering his
psyche and his body and his spirit so profoundly that even
now he has been reassembled differently. 

He thinks on the man who held his hand when he was small,
and taught him the runes and the histories of the ancients.
This man for whom he killed his birthfather, proclaiming 
himself “Son of Odin.” This man for whom he madly,
misguidedly, strove to erase his own bloodline, his
own race, in shame, shame, shame.  

And did that man rescue him from a frozen rock, or only
collar him, and hold his head underwater, while demanding, 
“swim”?

And does it matter
now? 

image

        “ … so am I.”  

Does he even mean it? 
Does he even know?
But maybe a part of him still wants this man
who will alway stand at a distance
whom he will never understand 
to find peace.  

“You have to know, I did what I thought was best. You can’t blame me for that.” (Notes from the father, Odin)

icyxmischief:

Send my muse a message from their father.

Loki is at first so paralyzed by his rage that he cannot muster a 
syllable. 

It isn’t Odin’s presumption to apologize that kindles that rage.
It’s his claim that he holds no accountability whatsoever in 
the debacle that is their family.  

        “Oh, ‘Allfather,’ I can blame you.”  

A brief, mirthless snap of laughter escapes him, a forced cackle
so unlike his true, breathy snicker.  It is hard and raw and bitter,
like everything that he feels for the man that somehow, he mustered
the mercy to deposit addled in a retirement home on Midgard.  

Not that Thor noticed the  restraint that Loki still showed
Odin, the remaining scraps of compassion that he could summon
for the man who had been an ever-present fixture of his childhood
(if only to be distant, and demanding, and never-satisfied, while
Frigga salvaged what could be saved of Loki’s mauled self-esteem).
No, the moment Odin ascended to Valhalla, Thor summoned an
involuntary storm and called the whole affair Loki’s fault.  

Old habits, old habits.  

image

       “I can blame you for paying me heed only to throw me into 
        inferior relief against my dearest friend and brother, ROBBING
       US BOTH of the camaraderie we might have better shared!  
        I can blame you for stealing me from my birth home only to
        prop me up as a convenient backup option should your 
        CONSTANT! GREEDY! Mining of other Realms’ resources and
        infrastructures come to naught, so you could trade me off 
        with some other artifact to APPEASE the INSURGENT MASSES.
        You were a POOR king, and a POORER father, and Thor and I
        BOTH suffered for it, even if he is too blinded by his romanticized
         memories of you to ever see that.   

         No, I cannot blame you for what I did, 
         
                 but I CAN blame you

                             for what YOU did!”  

So good, so kind, so benevolent, the father of all things,
so benign as he exploits the people under his feet, with
blood on his hands. 

May his guilty memories eat him alive.  
May he choke on his feast in Valhalla. 

I am sorry. —Odin

icyxmischief:

Send my muse a message from their father.

image

Three words. All he had ever searched for. All Odin had never
been willing to impart. Miserly even in his last hours, even with
Frigga’s gentling spirit calling to him.  

And here they are, those three words.  

Loki thinks on the man whose good opinion he once fixated 
upon with such agonies that it festered into a desire for his
own ill-gotten kingdom on earth.  He thinks on the moment
he heard no, and fell, and fell, and f e l l … . shattering his
psyche and his body and his spirit so profoundly that even
now he has been reassembled differently. 

He thinks on the man who held his hand when he was small,
and taught him the runes and the histories of the ancients.
This man for whom he killed his birthfather, proclaiming 
himself “Son of Odin.” This man for whom he madly,
misguidedly, strove to erase his own bloodline, his
own race, in shame, shame, shame.  

And did that man rescue him from a frozen rock, or only
collar him, and hold his head underwater, while demanding, 
“swim”?

And does it matter
now? 

image

        “ … so am I.”  

Does he even mean it? 
Does he even know?
But maybe a part of him still wants this man
who will alway stand at a distance
whom he will never understand 
to find peace.  

I presume you have guessed, my son, that from the time I imprisoned you I intended Asgard’s history to be as free of you as it was of Hela. Now I am glad that I failed to expunge you from it, for without you it would have ended.

Send my muse a message from their father.

       “ … these gracious words would mean more, if you’d had this
       epiphany in life.”

Contrary to the choice of words, Loki speaks them not with cruelty,
but with quiet, even humble, resignation.  

I am sorry. —Odin

Send my muse a message from their father.

image

Three words. All he had ever searched for. All Odin had never
been willing to impart. Miserly even in his last hours, even with
Frigga’s gentling spirit calling to him.  

And here they are, those three words.  

Loki thinks on the man whose good opinion he once fixated 
upon with such agonies that it festered into a desire for his
own ill-gotten kingdom on earth.  He thinks on the moment
he heard no, and fell, and fell, and f e l l … . shattering his
psyche and his body and his spirit so profoundly that even
now he has been reassembled differently. 

He thinks on the man who held his hand when he was small,
and taught him the runes and the histories of the ancients.
This man for whom he killed his birthfather, proclaiming 
himself “Son of Odin.” This man for whom he madly,
misguidedly, strove to erase his own bloodline, his
own race, in shame, shame, shame.  

And did that man rescue him from a frozen rock, or only
collar him, and hold his head underwater, while demanding, 
“swim”?

And does it matter
now? 

image

        “ … so am I.”  

Does he even mean it? 
Does he even know?
But maybe a part of him still wants this man
who will alway stand at a distance
whom he will never understand 
to find peace.