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The Big Damn Thor Megapost
Feb. 18th, 2014 12:02 pmThor
I have so many feels about this movie, argh.
After a lot of thinking, I've come to the conclusion that there are two major ways to interpret this movie.
(1) The more common interpretation, I believe. This is heavily reliant on the audience's expectation that Loki is the villain (whether through prior exposure to the comics, or through stereotyping/conditioning—the slight, quiet, introverted, thoughtful, effete character will usually end up being the antagonist to the outgoing, traditionally masculine/macho protagonist).
Loki has always been jealous of Thor and that's why he's the Bad Guy. He says he loves his brother, but every time he says that, it's a lie and a cover-up for his resentment. The Warriors Four are right to distrust him. He lets the jötnar into Asgard during Thor's ceremony out of spite, he manipulates Thor into going to Jötunheim to get Thor into trouble (though perhaps not expecting that Thor would be banished as a result). On Jötunheim, he begins to suspect he is actually a jötunn, which is confirmed later in his confrontation with Odin. Whatever else his faults are, his distress in that scene is genuine, and the fact that his internalized racism is now turned on himself is sincerely tragic. His jealous nature turns him paranoid, however, as he refuses to accept Odin's sincere declaration that he had always loved Loki. Under unclear and perhaps suspicious circumstances, Loki ends up with the throne and starts scheming to commit genocide on the jötnar, which is Wrong and Evil. His decision to lie to Thor to keep him on Earth is simply cruel manipulation. His decision to forbid the Warriors Four from going after Thor and later to send the Destroyer after Thor is a result of his jealousy culminating into wanting to get rid of Thor permanently. By the time Thor confronts Loki in Asgard, there's simply no hope left for Loki. His story may be tragic, but his actions have made him irredeemably evil.
(2) The interpretation that strips away the assumption that Loki must be evil by viewing him as a neutral/sympathetic figure at the start. This interpretation also takes into account the deleted scenes.
Even before he learns he is a jötunn, Loki has been "othered" throughout his life in Asgard. He is slight, quiet, introverted, thoughtful, and reliant on magic—the opposite of the Asgardian ideal as embodied by Thor. It's a bit unclear as to what he himself thinks of all this, but clearly he must have felt it: the Warriors Four readily distrust him for no apparent reason (to the point at which even when he's the official, temporary king regnant, they flagrantly disobey his orders), and even servants snicker at him when his magic is described as "tricks."
He does genuinely love Thor—he and Thor have a relaxed relationship filled with brotherly teasing ("Nice feathers," "You don't really want to start this again, do you, cow?", "Now give us a kiss"), support ("I won't let my brother ride into Jötunheim alone"), and moments of heartfelt emotion ("You're my brother, and my friend. Sometimes I'm envious, but never doubt that I love you.") He also knows how to diffuse/calm Thor's temper with wry humor ("Who said I was wise?"). Thor loves Loki in return, as they've done everything together since childhood ("You're not going to let my brother and me take all the glory, are you?").
At the same time, there are troubling undercurrents in the Odin family. Thor has consistently belittled Loki's magical talents as "tricks," and he has no difficulty in telling Loki to "know [his] place," openly viewing Loki as in a lesser position. Loki, in turn, is used to being spoken over by Thor and Odin, to the point where he will instantly shut up and be cowed if Thor or Odin yells at him. [Extrapolating from later films] Loki and Thor also regularly get into physical confrontations that are hardly evenly matched. So, the family relationships are not the model of health.
Loki has a penchant for causing chaos and mischief without necessarily evil intent. He let jötnar into Asgard on the day of Thor's ceremony for literally "a bit of fun" (and most likely expected those jötnar to end up dead by the end of the day). He possibly manipulated Thor into going to Jötunheim, but knowing his views of Frost Giants he also sounded pretty sincere about agreeing with Thor. But he doesn't particularly expect Thor to get into that much trouble, he does his best to get them out of trouble when it's clear they're in over their head vis-à-vis Laufey, and he is stunned when Thor ends up being banished to Earth.
He's also troubled by this point because he suspects that he's a jötunn. This leads him to speak a bit frankly to the Warriors Four and criticize Thor (an opinion he honestly holds, even if he doesn't speak it often). When he confronts Odin, he knows (correctly) that Odin had an ulterior purpose for taking him in, and in a height of emotion he openly speaks what he has long felt, but never voiced—that Odin never favored him the same way he favored Thor.
Loki doesn't expect it, but he ends up with the throne, and then sets into motion a plan that will wipe out the jötnar and (in his mind) prove his worthiness to Odin, while (semiconsciously?) also trying to negate his own jötunn heritage. To do this, to finally have his own time in the limelight, he has to make sure Thor doesn't come back, at least not for a while. The Warriors Four disobey him, which is why he's forced to send the Destroyer to Earth.
At the end, Loki's in complete emotional disarray, finding himself vilified for doing the exact same thing his beloved father and older brother have attempted before him, and being unable to work through his identity crisis with Thor because Thor has no idea what's going on with him. And when Odin denies his attempt to make him proud, Loki figures either there's nothing worth living for anymore or there's no hope for his family to love him, so he falls into space.
This is not to say that his actions weren't bad, because they were, but had things turned out differently, Loki wouldn't have ended up in the position of villain.
In my opinion, the second interpretation works better in terms of incorporating deleted material and interpreting some of Loki's motives and actions. However, there isn't anything that definitively disproves the first interpretation. I believe a lot of arguments in the fandom come down to an inability to reconcile these two very different interpretations of the movie and ensuing debate about Loki's villainy; it's not hard to believe that people might find themselves forced to view Loki and Thor's relationship as one-sided and insincere if they believe Loki must be the villain, because the emotional dissonance of describing Loki as an irredeemable villain in Interpretation #2 is pretty tremendous.
Ugh. So many Lokifeels. ;_;
I have so many feels about this movie, argh.
After a lot of thinking, I've come to the conclusion that there are two major ways to interpret this movie.
(1) The more common interpretation, I believe. This is heavily reliant on the audience's expectation that Loki is the villain (whether through prior exposure to the comics, or through stereotyping/conditioning—the slight, quiet, introverted, thoughtful, effete character will usually end up being the antagonist to the outgoing, traditionally masculine/macho protagonist).
Loki has always been jealous of Thor and that's why he's the Bad Guy. He says he loves his brother, but every time he says that, it's a lie and a cover-up for his resentment. The Warriors Four are right to distrust him. He lets the jötnar into Asgard during Thor's ceremony out of spite, he manipulates Thor into going to Jötunheim to get Thor into trouble (though perhaps not expecting that Thor would be banished as a result). On Jötunheim, he begins to suspect he is actually a jötunn, which is confirmed later in his confrontation with Odin. Whatever else his faults are, his distress in that scene is genuine, and the fact that his internalized racism is now turned on himself is sincerely tragic. His jealous nature turns him paranoid, however, as he refuses to accept Odin's sincere declaration that he had always loved Loki. Under unclear and perhaps suspicious circumstances, Loki ends up with the throne and starts scheming to commit genocide on the jötnar, which is Wrong and Evil. His decision to lie to Thor to keep him on Earth is simply cruel manipulation. His decision to forbid the Warriors Four from going after Thor and later to send the Destroyer after Thor is a result of his jealousy culminating into wanting to get rid of Thor permanently. By the time Thor confronts Loki in Asgard, there's simply no hope left for Loki. His story may be tragic, but his actions have made him irredeemably evil.
(2) The interpretation that strips away the assumption that Loki must be evil by viewing him as a neutral/sympathetic figure at the start. This interpretation also takes into account the deleted scenes.
Even before he learns he is a jötunn, Loki has been "othered" throughout his life in Asgard. He is slight, quiet, introverted, thoughtful, and reliant on magic—the opposite of the Asgardian ideal as embodied by Thor. It's a bit unclear as to what he himself thinks of all this, but clearly he must have felt it: the Warriors Four readily distrust him for no apparent reason (to the point at which even when he's the official, temporary king regnant, they flagrantly disobey his orders), and even servants snicker at him when his magic is described as "tricks."
He does genuinely love Thor—he and Thor have a relaxed relationship filled with brotherly teasing ("Nice feathers," "You don't really want to start this again, do you, cow?", "Now give us a kiss"), support ("I won't let my brother ride into Jötunheim alone"), and moments of heartfelt emotion ("You're my brother, and my friend. Sometimes I'm envious, but never doubt that I love you.") He also knows how to diffuse/calm Thor's temper with wry humor ("Who said I was wise?"). Thor loves Loki in return, as they've done everything together since childhood ("You're not going to let my brother and me take all the glory, are you?").
At the same time, there are troubling undercurrents in the Odin family. Thor has consistently belittled Loki's magical talents as "tricks," and he has no difficulty in telling Loki to "know [his] place," openly viewing Loki as in a lesser position. Loki, in turn, is used to being spoken over by Thor and Odin, to the point where he will instantly shut up and be cowed if Thor or Odin yells at him. [Extrapolating from later films] Loki and Thor also regularly get into physical confrontations that are hardly evenly matched. So, the family relationships are not the model of health.
Loki has a penchant for causing chaos and mischief without necessarily evil intent. He let jötnar into Asgard on the day of Thor's ceremony for literally "a bit of fun" (and most likely expected those jötnar to end up dead by the end of the day). He possibly manipulated Thor into going to Jötunheim, but knowing his views of Frost Giants he also sounded pretty sincere about agreeing with Thor. But he doesn't particularly expect Thor to get into that much trouble, he does his best to get them out of trouble when it's clear they're in over their head vis-à-vis Laufey, and he is stunned when Thor ends up being banished to Earth.
He's also troubled by this point because he suspects that he's a jötunn. This leads him to speak a bit frankly to the Warriors Four and criticize Thor (an opinion he honestly holds, even if he doesn't speak it often). When he confronts Odin, he knows (correctly) that Odin had an ulterior purpose for taking him in, and in a height of emotion he openly speaks what he has long felt, but never voiced—that Odin never favored him the same way he favored Thor.
Loki doesn't expect it, but he ends up with the throne, and then sets into motion a plan that will wipe out the jötnar and (in his mind) prove his worthiness to Odin, while (semiconsciously?) also trying to negate his own jötunn heritage. To do this, to finally have his own time in the limelight, he has to make sure Thor doesn't come back, at least not for a while. The Warriors Four disobey him, which is why he's forced to send the Destroyer to Earth.
At the end, Loki's in complete emotional disarray, finding himself vilified for doing the exact same thing his beloved father and older brother have attempted before him, and being unable to work through his identity crisis with Thor because Thor has no idea what's going on with him. And when Odin denies his attempt to make him proud, Loki figures either there's nothing worth living for anymore or there's no hope for his family to love him, so he falls into space.
This is not to say that his actions weren't bad, because they were, but had things turned out differently, Loki wouldn't have ended up in the position of villain.
In my opinion, the second interpretation works better in terms of incorporating deleted material and interpreting some of Loki's motives and actions. However, there isn't anything that definitively disproves the first interpretation. I believe a lot of arguments in the fandom come down to an inability to reconcile these two very different interpretations of the movie and ensuing debate about Loki's villainy; it's not hard to believe that people might find themselves forced to view Loki and Thor's relationship as one-sided and insincere if they believe Loki must be the villain, because the emotional dissonance of describing Loki as an irredeemable villain in Interpretation #2 is pretty tremendous.
Ugh. So many Lokifeels. ;_;
