Jumping Off The Other Anon's Point - Fantasy Racism In The Thor Movies Is So Weirdly Explored? As A Muslim

Jumping off the other anon's point - fantasy racism in the Thor movies is so weirdly explored? As a Muslim American I felt a lot of parallels between the Jotunheim-Asgard situation and my own life post-Iraq War/post-9/11 what with the war during my childhood and lingering distrust (and Asgard leaving Jotunheim to rot afterwards definitely struck a chord) but at the same time, the movie so clearly didn't even know it was doing that. It felt like a race metaphor for the sake of a race metaphor 1/3

(2/3) Plus, it’s handled SO CLUMSILY. The whole bit with Thor going ‘I’ll kill them all’ right in front of the King made it clear this racism was a whole systemic issue was NEVER fixed in their society! The perception of Jotuns never changed by the end of the movie! We never even get to find out what happened to Jotunheim ever, because it never gets brought up again. Instead, we find out that Grandpa Bor committed genocide too and throughout the movie it’s an entire non-issue?

(3/3) I think fantasy racism can work really well as a metaphor, IF the writer actually thought through every implication. I know as an American my perception of racism is way more heavily based on skin tone than most but the whole thing with Loki being able to look Asgardian read as ‘white passing’ to me and the implication of a white passing person trying to prove they’re not like the rest of their race? That’s so much to unpack, and the writers just threw out the whole suitcase.

Mmm, yeah, I totally feel you on all of this, Anon.

It’s interesting because like… So Ragnarok obviously has this anti-colonialist leaning, which is all about acknowledging the real horror of past events, and generally just accepting that there’s no Asgardian superiority. I don’t really think it was hard-hitting enough, and I appreciated there was something, but like…

It just felt weird to me for him to be like “colonialism is bad! what Odin did is wrong!” but also never acknowledge what happened to Loki. I appreciate that Taika Waititi isn’t much of a Loki fan (and certainly dislikes Loki’s fans), but it just seemed strange to take an anti-colonialist lilt without using this perfect example right in front of you.

What Odin and Frigga did to Loki (and I want to stress that it was Odin and Frigga, and that we shouldn’t excuse Frigga for her part in this) is what has happened to hundreds of thousands of native & indigenous children across the world. A child would be stolen from their real parents, forcibly “adopted”, bled of their culture, and would be systematically fed the evil ideology that the culture they came from is bad and wrong and uncivilized.

This has happened in Australia; this has happened in Canada - Hell, the last fucking “residential school” for First Nations kids in Canada only closed in ‘96! ‘96! 22 years ago, they were still fucking doing this. You know what that is? Literally, that is an act of genocide.

And like…

I think it’s just so fucked up that this keeps being boiled down to “he was adopted,” like, no… If they’d taken in this Jotunn kid, and he’d grown up knowing he was Jotunn but that he was still loved - that would be adopted. If they’d waited until he was like, an adolescent (say, the equivalent of 10/11) and told him he was a Jotunn but that he was still loved - that would be adopted.

But what Frigga and Odin did to him, raising him not only to not know what he was, but to despise where he came from…

That’s unspeakably and revoltingly cruel. There is literally no possible justification for it. 

People can tell me time and time again “but they didn’t want to shock him by telling him what he was” - he wouldn’t have been shocked, he wouldn’t have been as upset, if Asgard did not explicitly and regularly call for the genocide of the people he is revealed to belong to. If he had not been raised believing that these people - his people - are monsters, creatures, savages. 

“Loki overreacted,” like, no, man, he didn’t overreact, he fucking broke like shattered glass. “He didn’t have to try to kill an entire planet, though,” like bitch, why not? Thor did the same fucking thing like, a week ago. 

I don’t think what he did was right or justifiable, and certainly, it was not a rational decision made by a rational guy, but… Guys, Thor did the exact same thing. Can you imagine having this wild, psychotic break, sobbing your eyes out and knowing that not only did your family never love you as much as your brother, as they claimed, but that they were right not to, and desperately trying to prove to yourself that it can’t be true by murdering the people you supposedly come from–

And then your brother coming at you with this hypocrisy? Actual proof, shoved right in his face, that Thor can do x, but if Loki does x, he is the actual, most evil monster in the world?

The only person that even TRIES to work on the perception of the Jotnar is Loki himself, and that’s in exploring his feelings in this play he wrote as Odin, with nine or ten layers of distance between his identities at the time.

It’s just so fucked up. It’s so wrong. 

And I just don’t understand how they could shove all these facets into Thor (2011), and never unpack them in literally 5 fucking movies. You had so many opportunities, and you just… Ignored ‘em all. 

Someone on twitter is trying to convince me that Loki’s a bad person because “no one forced him to let go of the Bifrost and end up with Thanos, that was his own decision”.

Have we really gotten to the point where we’re blaming a fictional character for commiting suicide? Is that how far we’ve sunken? Is “well, it’s his own fault he survived his suicide attempt and was then tortured by a madman and forced to attack Earth - shouldn’t have tried to kill himself in the first place” really a position anyone wants to stand behind? REALLY?

I think there was a shift in Marvel’s attitude towards Tom between TDW and TR, and I wonder what caused it.

Did Tom do something to Kevin Feige? Did he sing under the shower and use all the hot water in a lodge they shared? Did he accidentally spill tea on his favorite suit? Did he have one drink too many and say “you’re going bald, man”? Did he run over his cat? Or did he piss off someone else? The possibilities are endless.

Meta: Loki’s Deleted “Coronation” Scene

Time to deconstruct this baby. 

First of all, let’s start with CONTEXT. Context part one: Loki has just been banished to his jail cell for eternity. Odin has just condemned him to a lifetime sentence without visitation rights by friends or family.  He has disowned him and claimed not only that his “birthright was to die”–which Odin during Loki’s childhood repeatedly lied about by omission, and by outright statements such as “both of you were born to rule”–but also that he should be grateful to Odin for taking pity on Loki, a helpless bastard infant (allegedly) outcast by his royal Jotun family, and letting him live.   Context part two: Loki protects himself by using lies and illusions.  He dons masks and personae, and utilizes both physical shape-shifting and mirages of extreme elaborateness, as his arsenal.  Not only as his blade, but as his SHIELD.  So when Loki uses illusions, we know he feels either physically, mentally, or emotionally threatened.

What we see before us is Loki imagining up, and probably casting ornate illusions (to entertain himself in boredom and sorrow, because trust me, mercurial emotions and extreme intellect are a miserable combo in a prison cell) of, the coronation that never was. What do we remember that Loki’s said about inheriting the throne of Asgard? “I never wanted the throne [to Thor]: I only ever wanted to be your equal” (Thor 2011).  However as equality with Thor, in Odin’s eyes, is contingent upon worthiness to inherit the throne, the throne becomes conflated with that equality, and Loki seeks it for the sole, very basic and dare I say very human desire to be accepted unconditionally by his family and culture.   What do we also know? That Frigga once granted Loki the throne during the Odinsleep and Thor’s banishment, LEGITIMATELY, only to be taken away when Thor somewhat miraculously grew a conscience and a better perspective of how to treat his subjects in the Nine with respect.  

What does this deleted scene, therefore, tell us? It tells us that Loki is  –feeling threatened –protecting and entertaining himself –imagining what he longs for and believes he deserves. 

So let’s interpret this “daydream,” and in doing so interpret where Loki’s elusive misconceptions and so-called “delusions” about his family dynamics, and the injustices done him, lie.   Because let’s not forget: EVERY SECOND OF THIS DELETED SCENE IS SPECIFICALLY FROM LOKI’S POV. That makes it a splendid look inside his typically obfuscated psyche. 

**********************

First let’s talk DIMENSIONS: 

This view of the Throne Room is somewhat larger and certainly more densely packed than the view that we see during Thor’s coronation (which, food for thought, Loki surely remembers DISRUPTING by INTRODUCING FROST GIANTS INTO THE VAULT WHICH LED ULTIMATELY TO THOR RUSHING HEADLONG INTO JOTUNHEIM AND LOKI LEARNING HIS TRUE HERITAGE, WHICH WAS THE BEGINNING OF LOKI’S UNDOING–lots and lots of associations with the SHATTERING OF TRUST, SELF-THWARTING, AND THE UNVEILING OF TRAGIC TRUTHS for Loki EMBEDDED IN THE **VERY PHYSICAL AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL SPACE OF THE THRONE ROOM***. Never forget that!).  

Also, note: cinematography is NEVER AN ACCIDENT: what we see, and the sequence of visuals we are presented in tandem with acting and a score, are conscious artistic decisions that feed the narrative for us on an unconscious level. So some filmographer decided that Loki’s perception of a coronation should be DISTANT, REVERENT, IMMENSE, DENSELY PACKED WITH TINY PEOPLE.  Thor’s coronation, on the other hand, is much more focused on a few people closest to the elder and more gregarious sibling.  His triumph is louder and more in your face. Loki’s has almost the religious fervor of a saint’s canonization, SUGGESTING A PATH LONG TRODDEN AND A VICTORY HARD EARNED (rather than a privilege taken for granted). 

Next, let’s talk about WHO IS PRESENT:

People whom Loki claims to “loathe,” who were “only Thor’s friends.” Uh huh.  While it was clear that Thor’s friends The Warrior Three and Lady Sif always tolerated Loki out of love of Thor more than loved or accepted the younger prince, in involving them in his daydream, Loki clearly conveys that he STILL VALUES their opinion of him on some level.  Who betrayed Loki first in Thor 2011?  Sif and the Warriors 3.  Who was Loki’s FIRST EVIDENCE that he’ll never be offered the devoted fealty that Thor is offered? Sif and the Warriors 3. This is both a sentimental detail, then, and ALSO proof that Loki will always CONCEPTUALIZE A FRIEND AND POTENTIAL SUBJECT’S BETRAYAL, WILL SCHEMATIZE THAT TREASONOUS ACT, AS THOR’S CHILDHOOD FRIENDS.   Interest side note: most people agree that Fandral was always the least abrasive toward Loki out of all of Thor’s best friends, so appropriate, isn’t it, to see him singled out in his own cameo? 

Now, how about Loki himself. And this frankly I consider the most heartbreaking component:

Red cloak COVERING UP, rather than loudly boasting (as in Avengers Assemble), his signature green and gold garb? 

Loki equates royalty with THOR (who, ironically, later says to Loki-as-Odin, “I’d rather be a good man than a great king (Thor: The Dark World)).”  What does Loki say when Frigga interrupts, and asks what he’s doing?   “I’m giving the people WHAT THEY WANT.”

“The people,” AKA Asgard, Loki is saying–and FULLY CONCEDING/SURRENDERING TO–they want THOR.  Not just THOR THE PERSON, but also ***THE CULTURAL ARCHETYPE THAT THOR EMBODIES.***

The ERASURE of Loki’s own identity, and the ASSUMPTION of Thor’s–

–COMPLETE WITH MJOLNIR–are Loki’s ONE WAY OF RECONCILING HIS HOPE OF EQUALITY WITH HIS “BETTER” BROTHER TO REALITY.  

“I remember a shadow. Living in the shade of your greatness.” (Avengers Assemble).  

***From Loki’s POV, being accepted and loved and SAFE are contingent upon either standing in Thor’s shadow, OR BECOMING THOR.***  

There is no way to be LOKI, and succeed, Loki believes, at this point in the game, exiled to a prison cell for th rest of his natural life, alone, and condemned for behaviors that Odin himself–and Thor, before Thor reformed!!!!–exhibited.   To be Odin and Thor is both INEVITABLE and, because Loki is LOKI, and NOT Odin or Thor, DOOM.  It’s a paradox in which Loki can’t win.  

That Loki longs to erase himself and become Thor, but also full well knows he cannot, is evinced in what he says when Frigga tells him that creating too many illusions means getting lost in them. 

What does he say? And in such a way that you MUST watch the video to get the full gut-punch tragic force of it: 

“Precisely.” With all the sorrow and resignation in the cosmos. “Precisely.”  I want to get lost in the impossible fantasy of being as unilaterally loved as my big brother.  I want to possess all the traits that make a person an Odinson, and therefore, worthy.  But green is not red, it’s red’s complement. 

 Cloaking myself in red will not make me Thor. I’m here in Asgard’s dungeons to prove it.   ****************** 

A note, too, on Loki’s DEMEANOR ONCE CAUGHT: 

First, we feign absolute mad glee. We pretend we don’t give a flying fuck anymore about how others perceive us (taken vastly to the task by the daydream itself).  We rebuff the concerned query of the only person who MIGHT be capable of understanding us (Frigga) with another weapon: humor. 

Then, as it always does with Frigga, who is both compassionate and perceptive, it falls flat.

And that is when we get defensive. That is when all hope is lost.