I HAVE BEEN FLAILING AT LENGTH ABOUT LOKI’S CHARACTER ARC IN THIS MOVIE AND POOR @5ummit HAS HAD TO LISTEN TO ME GO ON AND NOW IT’S EVERYONE ELSE’S TURN.
“You’re late.” “You’re missing an eye.”
I am just so delighted by how the introduction of Hela into the family shook things out of their rut and how it made everything that happened before feel necessary. Like, I think TDW was necessary because Loki needed that time to work through being the worst villain the family, the black sheep, to wallow in it to realize that it actually wasn’t satisfying at all. He had his time being WOE IS ME, he had his time being king of Asgard, and none of it really satisfied him. So, when shit goes sideways as it always does, when he went back to trying to betray Thor, it felt hollow, because Thor had accepted that that was a choice he might make, that Thor wasn’t bothered by it.
And then there’s Hela. Who takes the place of the worst Odinkid and Loki cannot really define himself by that role anymore, he’ll never be THE WORST after this. Instead, he’s somewhere in the middle. And I love that the movie seemed really aware of the gamut of this family, that Hela was on the far end of just deliciously, wonderfully violent and cruel, Thor was on the other end of how he had come through the fire and stayed good. And that these two children were each half of Odin, that he was a conqueror, but he was also a father who loved, that they’re the two sides of him. And Loki is that middle ground as well, he doesn’t have to be the best at being good, he doesn’t have to be the best at being evil, his siblings have that covered.
He can be something else, something more.
That’s why I loved that line so very much. It’s frustrating to want it to be more serious (but, then, wasn’t TDW serious enough for all of us?) but I think it kind of worked for me, in that Thor felt like he had really made peace with everything. It felt like Thor had MOVED ON and that’s what REALLY got to Loki.
So the idea that Thor might be indifferent to Loki is troubling for him, because that’s a defining feature of who his character is. I don’t belong in the family; my brother doesn’t love me; I hate my brother. The idea that his brother’s like, “Yeah, whatever,” it’s an interesting development. But the two of them, that’s what I kind of loved about Ragnarok when I first read it. The two of them are placed in such an extraordinary situation where everything is unfamiliar; that their familiarity, literally as family members, becomes important.
Loki, for all that he pushes people away and betrays them and stabs them in the back, desperately does not ACTUALLY want to be given up on. Thor making real peace with the idea that they’re going to go their separate ways? Thor’s indifference to Loki trying to scheme and plot?
That’s what Loki absolutely cannot stand.
And that’s what the past movies are about–Thor trying to reach him, Loki pushing him away (to see if Thor will keep coming back) but when Thor MOVES ON, when Thor is done mourning and finds his equilibrium again, when Thor says, all right, well, this is what you want, then let’s do it and he means it?
It leaves Loki with the choice to make himself. He can’t pin this choice on Thor or even on Odin. He tries briefly, “Funny how [Odin]’s death should split us apart.” and Thor’s just like, I loved you, but we parted ways a long time ago. You do what you want to do, Loki. Stay in your predictability or be something more, whatever you choose, you choose.
And when it’s on LOKI to make that choice, suddenly he can’t bear to be left behind. Suddenly he can’t bear for Thor to not care about him. Suddenly he can’t bear not to be something more than what he was, because there’s nothing to rebel against and instead it’s up to no one but Loki to make that choice.
So he chooses something more. (In the most Extra and dramatic fashion possible a;skjlakjslajks “YOOOOOUR SAVIOOOOR IS HERE!” oh my god.)
Loki in the beginning: “Ah finally! Recognition, feeling I belong, Thor is happy far away on Midgard and I get a little payback on father. What could possibly go wrong?”
Loki when Thor shows up: “Oh shit!” *Gulps* “You are crazy of course I’m Odin… just a more relaxed, less judgmental, less war hungry, more artistic….Fine I yield, none of that was believable anyway.”
Loki: “You had one job! Just the one!”
Asgardian’s reaction to Loki transforming back into himself.
Loki: “I have been falling for 30 minutes!”
What Loki wanted to do to Dr. Strange:
Loki’s sadness during the whole Odin scene:
Loki’s reaction to Hela going into battle mode: “Psh now she is a bag of cats. We’re out of here by Fish!”
Loki on the Bifrost until Thor worriedly yells his name looking down:
Hela knocks Loki off Bifrost:
Thor getting his hair cut:
Thor being 100,000,000,000,000,000,000% done with Loki in the arena jail:
Loki seeing Hulk in the arena:
Loki starts to think that Hulk is actually going to kill Thor:
Loki: “Hello Bruce”
Loki: (I swear this was directed at Hulk not Bruce) “It varies from moment to moment…”
Loki: “We are not doing Get Help…”
Loki betraying Thor and not expecting him to know its coming:
Loki: “Your savoir has arrived!”
Loki: “I’m here.” (NOW GIVE US A FREAKING HUG MARVEL!!!!!!)
Do you know what’s another moment I loved about this movie? When Loki makes his grand YOUR SAVIOR IS HERE! entrance, this is Thor’s reaction:
He’s delighted to see that dramatic little shit!
It complements the moment that comes not too much later, when Thor finds his lightning powers again and comes raining lightning down on the bridge, Loki does this absolute fucking smirk:
THEY ARE SO DELIGHTED BY EACH OTHER.
After all the years we had to struggle our way through the breaking of their relationship, the losses they both suffered, the cracks to both their foundations, the bitterness and strife that kept wedging itself in between them, literal years of watching them break apart and break apart and break apart.
And this movie could have broken them for good. But instead it understood that they cannot go backwards, but that does not mean they cannot still go forward. That they can’t both be grow and change and find each other again.
The death of the last of their family might have split them apart, it almost did, but when it really came down to it, they both chose to move on, to be something more, and that allowed them to come back together.
It allowed them to smile when they saw each other again, genuine and real. After all that hurt–when Loki shows up again, their first reaction to the sight of the other is one of being glad to see the other, both of them.
Someone gif Loki when he comes out of the portal thing and meets Dr Strange and gets out his daggers because that shit was so hot I gasped in the cinema
that scene was so hot! I wish it didn’t cut short!
Oh damn!!!! Like im not turned on enough already… *shivers*
Hot damn…
Gods yes I love how he just whipped out those daggers out of nowhere. Definitely a hot scene.🤯😍
Oh myyyyy
I need the extended gif of Loki on the Bifrost bridge when he beats down someone with his helmet and the whole hair flip thing happens ……..someone help
This was really important and Thor blew it off which totally floored me. The only excuse I can think of is that because Sakaar is temporally weird, Loki’s been there and able to mourn Odin for two weeks, while Thor literally watched Odin die moments ago.
But even with that being the case? It still flabbergasts me that Thor can be so strangely uncritical of and emotionally enmeshed with Odin, after Odin’s behavior in TDW.
To me that shows that Odin not only emotionally neglected Loki, he also groomed and conditioned Thor to be a mere extension of himself with no autonomous thought, until Thor was simultaneously so privileged and so dependent/reactive that he had to be exiled to straighten himself up.
And he DID straighten himself up with Jane, so I’m kind of like. Why. Is Thor such an asshole in Ragnarok again? Why the character regression???? Is this just his way of coping with constant loss, to get all arrogant and macho and Gaston-like?
This is a genuine question I’m asking Thor muns here. Do you think Thor’s weird combination of petulance, pride and sanctimony are the result of grief? Or just bad writing?
(Nothing really spoilerish in the link but exercise caution if you haven’t seen the movie yet)
Loki doing things in the blue getup is my new aesthetic.
Loki’s blue outfit is the best.
He’s so tall that his fight scenes are in a half squat position. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to @freckletriangleofdoom why this is a wonderful, beautiful thing.
Tasertrickslove 