I Dont Want To Piss Off Other Fans, But Ive Been Mulling Over This For A While. The Whole Thor Loves

I don’t want to piss off other fans, but I’ve been mulling over this for a while.  The whole “Thor loves Loki and Loki loves Thor” “there is not Thor without Loki & no Loki without Thor” thing – I can’t see it.  From Loki, yes, but not from Thor.

TDW was what really killed this supposed relationship for me.  After Loki is put in his cell – to be locked away for the rest of his life, solitary confinement 24/7 – Thor doesn’t mention Loki at all. We’re not shown someone mentioning him, and Thor reacting with some emotion (hurt, anger, grief, nostalgia, regret, ANYTHING).  Loki is out of sight and out of mind, and it’s easy for Thor to get over him. As I said just before, it would make sense if Thor was deliberately shutting down his emotions with regard to Loki, but we’re not shown that, either.  There’s nothing.

The one exception is the deleted scene of a conversation between Frigga & Thor, after Frigga has been secretly visiting Loki.  And that scene horrifies me even more than Thor’s silence does.

In the MCU, Thor explains that magic = science.  He asks his mother if she regrets educating her son.  Her asks why the “indulgences” of books and visits.  Thor believes that Loki should be locked away and left to rot, for the rest of his entire life, and that even his mother shouldn’t bother about him. There is zero compassion, only confusion.  He genuinely doesn’t understand why Frigga is having anything to do with her son anymore. This shows exactly how Thor is feeling about Loki – he doesn’t care.  You would think they were speaking about a random prisoner whom Thor barely knows.

There’s no relationship there.  There’s no love.  Thor isn’t lost without Loki.  He barely spares him a thought.

It’s not just TDW, though.  I was shocked at how the first Thor movie ended.  The focus is on Jane trying to get back to Thor, not Loki’s suicide.  Like in TDW, Thor spends more energy pining over his girlfriend of three days than his brother of a thousand years.  Yes, he’s anguished and grieving and horrified when Loki lets go.  But he gets past that very quickly.  Hell, Sif shows more emotion over Loki after the initial shock of his fall.

I know a lot of Loki fans don’t like Thor: Ragnarok, but unfortunately, it is canon.  And I don’t think that the way Thor treats Loki is out of character for him at all – it’s got worse, sure, but it’s not much different.  Why should the man who refused to acknowledge Loki’s grief for their mother, care about Loki’s feelings after their father’s death?  Thor has already questioned if Loki has literally any good qualities anymore, and threatens to kill him if he “betrays” him again, so why not the electrocution scene?

You could say – oh, “you don’t understand what you love until you lose it”, but Thor has “lost” Loki 2x before his real death, and didn’t come away from that with any more appreciation for his brother.  And the scenes where he grieves over Loki’s body are moving, but who wouldn’t react that way if a family member was killed in front of them – whether they were close to them or not??  Hell, I suspect I’d react that way if my father was killed like that, and I certainly do not love him.

Grief over a person – even the amount that Thor shows – does not necessarily mean a genuine, heartfelt love for them.  There are all sorts of reasons we mourn a person.  Often, it’s for ourselves rather than for them.

I’m sure that at one point Thor loved Loki.  But he’s mourning for the past, not for Loki himself.  As he says before letting him out his cell, the Loki he once knew is gone.  But that’s always the case – we change, we grow, we become better, we become worse.  I’m not saying Thor has to love Loki.  Sometimes, because people change, we can’t love them any more.  But Thor got over Loki pretty easily – his deaths, his imprisonment, even his relief at finding he was alive after all.  Which suggests to me that his love for Loki wasn’t all that strong in the first place.

Maybe the script-writers didn’t intend it to be that way.  Maybe the intention was to show that close, brotherly relationship that TH goes on about in interviews.  But if so, they failed at making it happen, and this is what we were given instead.

please don’t hate me

Some imagined slights with my morning coffee (by an unabashed, unapologetic Loki apologist )

In the original script (and in the novelization) for Ragnarok, Loki doesn’t betray Thor. They leave Sakaar and return to Asgard together. This got changed so that Thor could have his triumphant moment of glory over Loki, and deliver his oh-so-enlightening “life is about change” speech.

Loki did the bad things he did in the first movie because he had a mental and emotional breakdown. His life as he knew it came crashing down. Kenneth Branagh described it as the rod that held his mind together snapping. Look at Loki in this movie. You can practically hear and see when that snap happens. He was in a world of hurt. He wasn’t well.

In Avengers Loki did the bad things he did because he literally fell into the hands of a psycho who then tortured and trained him and turned him into his weapon. Why are people still not paying attention to the details of this movie? The hints? The clues? Again, Loki was not himself. It was not his plan to attack earth.

When Thor leaves Loki convulsing on the floor, he knew from experience that that stupid disc renders you completely paralyzed and incapacitated. And he doesn’t.give.a.shit. In that moment he is 110% done with Loki. He has no way of knowing if Loki will get out of it, and he doesn’t care. If Loki gets free, fine. If he doesn’t, that’s fine too. Thor also knew that the guards were looking for Loki as well. Didn’t care.

When Thor and Loki were kids, Loki was the bright, sensitive curious one, he wasn’t a bully, or constantly lurking in the shadows waiting for any opportunity to stab Thor. He loved and looked up to Thor, wanted to be just like him, equal to him, to be seen as an equal in his brother’s and father’s eyes. He lived in Thor’s shadow. Shadows are dark, cold, lonely places. 

Thor was big, brash and outspoken, he always had friends, he was constantly surrounded by a support system of love and encouragement. Loki was on the flipside of that. Loki was a trickster and loved mischief, which was playful and innocent and it helped him get attention. When they fought, they fought like you’d expect brothers to fight. Whatever form it was that Loki retaliated in, I’m sure Thor was able to give as good as he got.

When Loki was imprisoned for what was supposed to be forever, Thor didn’t visit him for over a year. He abandoned Loki. Loki literally became just another stolen relic locked up until someone had use of him.

Loki only said “I’ll pay her a visit myself” to goad Thor into fighting him. He had tears running down his cheeks as he said it. 

Loki loved his family more than anything, and he proved it in action and in words.

Loki died to protect Thor and Jane.

And I don’t care what Ragnarok tries to convince the audience about Loki, I’m not buying any of it, I don’t accept it as truth, canon, or anything else.

Loki was a magnificent, beautiful beast, and Marvel could’ve let him live out the rest of the movies like that, but they sold him out. They put him on the chopping block. They took him to slaughter. They had him put down. 

And if they do, by some miracle, try to make up for it, it’s going to take alot. It’s going to have to be something pretty damn big and pretty damn good. And I don’t think they have it in them. My faith in Marvel is shot. Gone.

foundlingmother replied to your post: sorry, wdym by their breakup in Ragnarok?

Yes, more power to them. I just wish they wouldn’t imply we’re crazy and stupid (and flat out say we’re wrong) for not seeing it as positive… Like, I’m sorry I don’t see Thor leaving Loki with a device meant to keep slaves in line active on him as this sweet moment of brotherly acceptance. (Sorry, lots of posts getting on my nerves lately. Couldn’t help but vent.)

OK guess i lied about not going into any more detail in a public post. 

See, a lot of the complaints I have seen about it, and a lot of the derisive responses to those complaints, have been about whether the device itself was cruel. But to me, that’s… missing the point a bit, at least with the way I see it, because I am completely not complaining about the physical pain Thor inflicted on Loki. They can bash the shit out of each other, that’s fine; I’m sure if you tallied up who had hurt who when, they’d both have a long list. I do think it was… reckless, to say the least… for Thor to leave him there helpless without any certainty of who would find him, but I would be able to overlook that as a lapse in judgment under other circumstances.

What bothers me is why. Telling someone who has known trauma around identity and belonging “who you are is as a person is inadequate and I will disown you unless you change to suit my standards” is…

I mean, I know some folks reading this are not gonna hear what I’m saying but are going to hear what they think I’m saying. So let me clarify. I am not saying how horrible Thor is for saying it. I don’t care whether it’s right or wrong, an acceptable or unacceptable action. That is entirely irrelevant. It could be 100% justified… but it would not have achieved the end that the movie claims. What I’m saying is that regardless of whether Loki got out and followed him back to Asgard, and regardless of whether they hugged and made nice with each other, that conversation did the opposite of what needed to happen to heal their relationship, and it may have effectively destroyed any chance of future healing between them.

The fracture in their relationship was around trust—not just Thor’s trust in Loki but also Loki’s trust in Thor. That was something that TDW got very right, for all its other flaws, because it showed that Loki started to come back from the edge when Thor chose to extend trust to him, treated him like his brother, took him seriously, and generally allowed Loki to believe that their relationship was not permanently stained. What Loki needed was to be able to trust in Thor’s love for him: that it wasn’t just circumstantial. That he, as a person, mattered to Thor, and that Thor would be able to re-accept him after his transgressions and would continue to value him. And Thor showing him so through his actions was working to fix their relationship and give them the space to talk things through with some kind of honesty and work their shit out. It was working, to the extent that Loki fully intended to die to save Thor. (The fact that Loki took advantage of circumstances when he woke up alive doesn’t change that and is, to my thinking, wholly in line with his character and his need to not let his feelings be used against him. Just died for your brother in a blatant display of love and loyalty? whoop better go and be a dick to fuck that right up!).

But the above scene from Ragnarok, Thor’s ultimatum, would utterly shatter Loki’s trust in all of those things. And, importantly, it would do absolutely nothing to heal Thor’s trust in his brother, either, because… I mean, it was compliance under threat of abandonment. That really doesn’t prove anything about someone’s trustworthiness or whether they have “changed.” All it proves is that you know where their buttons are located.

And that is exactly where the movie leaves it, with trust thoroughly shattered on both sides. Which is the end of any relationship if serious action isn’t taken to repair that trust. But no such action is shown or even suggested. Loki coming to save the day wouldn’t do it; he’d rushed to Thor’s rescue as recently as the previous movie, so that’s hardly new. Them fighting side by side wouldn’t do it; they’d done that thousands of times before. Hugs likewise. And if the issues were deep and serious enough to cause the breaking of a centuries-long brotherly bond, how could they possibly be resolved off-screen, without so much as a hint of how it happened? They couldn’t. It just doesn’t work, narratively speaking.  

So to me, that movie ends with their relationship completely broken. They are inhabiting the same space and they are ostensibly on peaceful terms, but any basis for trust has been destroyed. By any meaningful definition, their relationship is deader than a doornail.

And to me it is fitting, under those circumstances, that Loki would go and get himself killed kinda-sorta on purpose at the first opportunity as well. I mean, last time he was in a similar situation of having been rejected by those he cared about, he threw himself into an abyss. And this time he even got to continue to try to prove himself to Thor while doing it, just like one might feel compelled to do after such an ultimatum.

So yeah that’s why I call it a breakup. Because I don’t see any other way I can interpret it.

Kocham Thora

Kocham Thora w pierwszym filmie, bo pokazał, jak z narwanego głupka stać się kochaną, współczującą osobą. Odnalazł swój sens życia, skosztował miłości, wiedział, co to poświęcenie i radość, zwłaszcza kiedy na pierwszy plan wchodziła obrona słabszych. Kocham Thora w Avengersach i Avengers 2, kiedy starał się ze wszystkich sił bronić świat, który pokochał. Kiedy potrafił pochylić się nad cierpiącymi i im współczuć. Kocham Thora w TDW, kiedy musiał podejmować trudne decyzje, kiedy musiał zaufać bratu (i słusznie), kiedy dobro królestwa i ukochanej osoby było dla niego najważniejsze. Kocham Thora w IW, kiedy to stracił wszystko i determinacja popchnęła go ku walce. Kiedy potrafił płakać nad stratami i cieszyć się z drobnych sukcesów. Kocham Thora w EG, kiedy pogrążyły go porażki, ale potrafił się podnieść i stawić czoła demonom. Nienawidzę Thora w Ragnaroku. Z całego serca nienawidzę tego manipulatora, sadysty i egocentryka, jakim tam się stał. Nie jest tam moim bohaterem, jest karykaturą, którą antyfani nazywają Chris Odinson. Nie cierpię i nie akceptuję tego jego wizerunku. Nienawidzę Ragnaroka.

“Thor” (2011) - kilka słów o filmie

Dzisiaj zaczynam mój cykl recenzji i jako pierwszy na tapetę wezmę film „Thor” Ogólnie nie ma chyba rzeczy, która by mi się w tym filmie nie podobała. Wszystko było zrównoważone - i humor i tragedia, tak samo jak sceny akcji i sceny z dialogami. Najbardziej mnie interesował ten film ze względu na pokazanie dość skomplikowanej relacji pomiędzy braćmi. Coś-tam w sieci poczytałam (na szczęście unikając jakichś większych spoilerów) i wiedziałam, że na to muszę zwrócić uwagę. Jak już wiecie pewnie, dla mnie ten temat jest nieobcy - sama mam w domu wciąż rywalizujących ze sobą dwóch synów, tak też bardzo zwracam uwagę na tego typu wątki we filmach. Stąd też zaciągnęłam dzieciaki do oglądania niegdyś Jurassic World. Dlatego też tak bardzo wyszukuję drobnych szczegółów w relacji Data-Lore. I dlatego zawsze lubiłam dynamikę Dantego-Vergila w DMC. No i tutaj mamy kolejny przykład. Mamy klasyczny przykład jednego brata żyjącego w cieniu drugiego, z jednej strony zazdrosnego i podstępnego, ale mimo wszystko łączy ich silna więź. Thor jest wg mnie postacią bardzo pozytywną, bo traktuje brata na równi z sobą, co widać zwłaszcza w tej wyciętej z filmu scence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P23aKF-694k no i między nimi jest jednak prawdziwa miłość braterska, co się daje odczuć w wielu momentach. Jedyne co, to Loki się trochę pogubił, zwłaszcza, gdy dowiedział się o swoim pochodzeniu i to było już równią pochyłą dla niego. Jest mi tak naprawdę go strasznie szkoda, zwłaszcza że naprawdę chciał zdobyć uznanie ojca :( Szkoda, że doprowadziło go to do autodestrukcji i został przeciągnięty na ciemną stronę mocy. Yyy, nie to uniwersum, sorry ;) Co do innych postaci, to również bardzo pozytywnie je odbieram. Przyjaciele Thora - każdy miał inny charakter, ale jednak potrafili razem stawić czoła największym niebezpieczeństwom. Frigga też widać, że bardzo kocha swoich synów. Odin - jak to Odin, musi zgrywać twardego i bezwzględnego króla, ale stara się być dobrym ojcem dla Thora (co prawda tylko dla Thora, bo ojcem dla Lokiego jest fatalnym, ale pomińmy ten fakt milczeniem). W tym miejscu muszę pochwalić grę aktorką Anthonyego Hopkinsa, naprawdę dał z siebie wszystko (pomimo, że jego postać pół filmu przespała ;)) Jeśli już o aktorach mowa, to wiele osób źle ocenia Natalie Portman jako Jane. A mnie się nawet podobała. Była chemia między nią a Thorem, no, może nie taka wielka jak między Thorem a Lokim, ale mimo wszystko Jane i Thor do siebie pasują i fajna z nich parka. Skoro już o Jane mowa, to czas powiedzieć co nieco o przygodach ziemskich Thora. Było naprawdę wesoło (świetne gagi, jak na przykład trafił do szpitala, albo jak się upijał z Selvigiem) - wszystko związane z tropem tzw. "fish out of water" w przypadku naszego głównego bohatera świetnie się sprawdziło. Były też sceny wzruszające (jak np. Thor nie mógł wyciągnąć Mjollnira, albo gdy myślał, że jego ojciec nie żyje). Podobały mi się też ogólnie jego interakcje z ziemskimi przyjaciółmi oraz z rządowym SHIELDem. W filmie została zachowana równowaga jeśli chodzi o wydarzenia pokazane w Asgardzie oraz na Ziemi, a wszystko się ze sobą pięknie połączyło w finale. Dość tragicznym finale, bo tak naprawdę Thor stracił i Jane i brata... Tak czy owak podobała mi się przeplatająca się przez wątek Asgardu polityczna intryga. Świetnie były pokazane delikatne stosunki dyplomatyczne pomiędzy mieszkańcami Asgardu i Jotunami. Delikatne, bo jak wynika, ani jednych ani drugich lepiej nie tykać nawet kijem, bo wojna wisi na włosku - jedynie roztropność Odina jakoś przeciwdziałała wybuchowi konfliktu. Widać to chociażby po scence, kiedy Laufey nazywa Thora "księżniczką" i to wystarcza, aby obie strony zaczęły się srogo lać ;) Szczerze mówiąc z całego filmu nie zostało jedynie wyjaśnione, jaką drogą Jotunowie dostali się na początku filmu do Asgardu, aby skraść szkatułę, bo to, że nie użyli Bifrostu jest pewne (Heimdall czuwa - BTW, kolejna bardzo fajna postać, pomaga przyjaciołom Thora w - bądź co bądź - rebelii). Wiadomo jedynie, że Loki ich tam wprowadził, a znając Lokiego jestem skłonna przypuszczać, że użył jakichś swoich tajnych dróg. Hmm, co tam jeszcze mogę dodać... Ogólnie postacie super, historia super, relacje pomiędzy bohaterami genialne, no i nie ma bata, Thor musiał pokazać gołą klatę - i to też na plus <3 <3 Z kobiecych postaci najbardziej mi się podobała Darcy - fajna laska i potrafi strzelać taserem :D Podobały mi się też szczegóły i szczególiki, które albo zauważyłam sama, albo doczytałam potem w tv tropes. Były nawet wystąpienia cameo. Aha, no i bardzo się cieszę, że pokazali chociaż przez chwilę Sleipnira (konia Odina). Kiedyś interesowałam się nieco mitologią skandynawską (za czasów jeszcze Sg-1, gdzie Thor, jak może niektórzy pamiętają, był kosmitą), więc od razu zwróciłam na to uwagę. A Loki jest śliczny... Od dzisiaj jestem w #teamloki

Ogólnie wyszła z tego bardzo szekspirowska opowieść (nic dziwnego, w końcu ma znakomitego szeksprirowskiego reżysera) z rewelacyjnie napisanymi postaciami, tymi dobrymi, jak i złymi i niezłą dwuwątkową fabułą. Mój ulubiony film w MCU, jak do tej pory.

Ocena 9/10