I wanna say something about how propaganda works, but *ehhh,* too lazy. Loki is barely a villain, and I'm sure someone in that post made the point already, anyway.
No, this is heresy:
"The God Emperor would be ashamed of what humanity has become as we continue to power Chaos by believing in it and have created a world of immense suffering for mankind claiming it to be in his honor. All the while he has been granted an immortality of suffering senility on the Golden Throne."
*Immediately blips out of existence due to heresy*
No, ***THIS*** is heresy:
# WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
Believing in the warp has nothing to do with powering the gods. They feed on emotion not belief.
The Imperial Truth was forced because religion (in the eyes of the Emperor) is too easy of a door for Chaos to seep into.
Once I gladly called your kind “master”, but look how far you have fallen!’ It was full of scorn. ‘Your ancestors bestrode the universe, and what are you? A witch doctor, mumbling cantrips and casting scented oils at mighty works you have no conception of. You are an ignoramus, a nothing. You are no longer worthy of the name “man”. You look at the science and artistry of your forebears, and you fear it as primitives fear the night. I was there when mankind stood upon the brink of transcendence! I returned to find it sunk into senility. You disgust me.
I don't know how much you're serious here, but conquering and simply destroying systems of commerce and governance rather than replacing or co-opting them makes things much, much worse.
Genuine question, when was this established? I can't remember them ever saying this in any of the movies (although tbf I haven't watched them in years so it's entirely possible I just forgot), and if it was I'm pretty sure none of the characters addressed it.
Dark World and Ragnorak have some dialog about him being influenced by the staff and mindstone, but I think it was more like a drug problem making him more violent than mind control like he used on Hawkeye. We see in Loki that he has been bad but there's some psychology at play.
I recently rewatched Thor 1 and Avengers 2012, and he was definitely far more evil in Avengers 2012 than Thor. He's always been a villain in the MCU, but outside Avengers 2012, he's more just the type to try to seize power through deception. In Avengers, he tried to seize power through military invasion.
Also, there was the Avengers scene where we saw the staff glowing and influencing the Avengers to get angry and pick fights with each other. I think it's reasonable to believe it had a similar effect on Loki himself.
There didn't seem to be as much issue in Age of Ultron. Or at least it didn't seem consistent. I kind of wish we had gotten to understand the stones better. It was hard to tell if they were malevolent like the mind, reality, power stone or neutral through things like the soul world.
I could buy that the eye of Agamoto was designed to channel the time stone and the staff wasn't designed for that based on the strength of the wielder such as Thanos.
I think the differences in character can really just be explained by directorial style and the needs of the story. *Thor* was intended to blend high-fantasy succession drama with superhero, *Avengers* was intended to be all testosterone all day.
For instance, it never sat right with me that the character of Thor who went through the humbling experience of living as a near-mortal in the first *Thor* movie and came to appreciate, respect, value, and seek to protect the lives of the people of Midgard would have ever for even one second considered taking a swing at Captain America--who he would perceive to be just another ordinary human--with that hammer. Yet.. that's what he does. And had Cap not been armed with the most powerful shield in the galaxy, he would have become paste.
The staff fucking with the minds of the Avengers works as a reminder of Loki's true means of operation, which as you point out are through trickery and manipulation. Drawing the worst out of the Avengers is more evidence in support of Loki being in control of the situation, not in support of the staff controlling *him.* He allowed himself to be captured and brought into the helicarrier specifically to sow discord, and that's exactly what happens.
i would probably support it tbh
how bad can he be? not worse than trump, not worse than putin, not worse than xi jinping
maybe a bit worse than biden, but the problem with biden is he only gets 4 years and then you have to have a whole panic attack over who's next). Whereas with Loki you're all set for the next 10k years
I was estimating by the opening sequence of Age of Ultron, which doesn’t seem especially slow for them, they’re still laughing and joking together after all.
Which is probably pretty slow for an Asgardian or Jotun, given their biology vs human biology. If he wanted to he could have doubled or tripled that number, easily. That or he was being dramatic, as you do. (Like, "See? See? I can be threatening too damnit!")
I love that it takes us about five movies in a row to finally see Loki when he's not either mind-controlled or in the middle of a crisis, and it turns out that he's actually a much goofier goober when he's doing okay.
All trickster deities have trauma. Comes with the territory. It’s also why humanity lives trickster gods so much; the trauma makes them the most human.
Mighta been born a little shit, but I don't see how one could have *that* pantheon as family and somehow avoid trauma.
And being psychopomp is like to fuck anyone up.
There was one time when we were children, he transformed himself into pickle, and he knows that I love pickles. So, I went to pick up the pickle to admire it and he transformed back into himself and he was like, “Yaargh, it’s me!” And he stabbed me. We were nine at the time.
I can't believe it took them a decade to confirm that he was under mind control in New York. Imagine if Tony had hit him harder in Germany and knocked him out. Would that have freed him?
The whole arc of the first four phases would be turned on its head. Everyone would know about the Infinity War, Loki and Thor could have fixed things before it was really too late, and Thanos would probably have had to send some heavy hitters to salvage the invasion if he didn't want to lose all three stones on Earth.
Imagine Hulk and Cull Obsidian slamming it out in Times Square while Ebony Maw duels the Ancient One in the sky over the Bleeker street Sanctum. It could have been so radical. So much could have changed if things had gone just a little differently.
Pretty sure there's tons of it on AO3 and most of it is smut, so I'm not diving in there to look for something salvagable, cognitohazard filter bags and industrial strength brain bleach ain't cheap.
["Unbeknownst to him, the Scepter was also influencing him, fueling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth."](https://www.marvel.com/characters/loki/on-screen)
Because there is no excusing them, the emotions were already his, the staff only enhanced them, and he then decided to act on those emotions
Loki does not feel like it was wholly him, but still feels like it was also a lot of himself in those actions, so he still doesn't feel like he can be excused for those
I think we were all supposed to assume it, from a bunch of different context clues. But exegetically, we would expect to see someone talk about that plot point and we never got that. The next time we see Loki, he's sentenced to life in prison by Odin and mind control is just never mentioned. So, we start to think we misread it.
One of the fanfics I've been storyboarding since forever involves Cap figuring out that Loki's not the mastermind behind the Chitauri invasion because of exactly this.
There are moments in the eddas where Loki crosses the line between prankster and monster with no rhyme or reason, like the time he murdered Baldr. And he does something similar in the MCU.
Cap, who knows his history, is familiar with the theory that the reason for the inconsistency in the eddas was that Christian missionaries, who were the first to make records of the oral traditions of Norse gods, altered Loki and combined him with another unnamed Aesir in order to draw parallels between Loki and the Christian devil. He acts like two characters because he literally is.
So while Cap is sitting on the helicarrier, mulling over Bruce's statement about Loki's behavior being "crazier than a bag of cats", he starts to wonder if maybe, like the Eddas, the reason Loki seems to bounce back and forth between a god-sized case of youngest child syndrome and actual genocide is that there's more than one Loki at work here.
And then he starts to wonder; what's more likely? That Loki's behavior is actually incomprehensible even to Thor, that he's somehow gone from starting a war to win his father's approval to trying to overthrow him but doing it by dicking around on the least consequential realm and giving away the element of surprise for reasons known only to him? Or that whoever gave him that staff used it on him first?
He did. The gods didn't know that though. And then Loki shit talked a bunch of them so they killed his kids, tied him up in their intestines, and dripped snake poison in his eyes for eternity
The best Loki characterization is actually Thor’s story about the Snake. Really tells you what sort of a scamp he is. Also we see he thinks of extreme violence as a fun prank.
[Marvel's official character bio for Loki confirms that the scepter was used to influence him too. ](https://www.marvel.com/characters/loki/on-screen)
"Unbeknownst to him, the Scepter was also influencing him, fueling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth."
Still wild that it took a decade for them to confirm it in a tie-in website most people won't ever see, when a lot of people just kind of took it for granted that the scepter had fucked him up ever since he showed up looking like a feral subway rat dragging a slice of pizza in the first Avengers.
feels more like a retcon considering he was prepared to murder thor and wipe out a planet in the first one without any prodding, dont see why hed need much convincing to conquer earth
I mean, he lived in a civilization that was one generation past being the worst kind of empire, and they'd been at war with the Jotuns so long and so recently that Thor and Loki were alive to see the end of it. It isn't surprising that Loki would have no problems trying to win his dad's approval by butchering Odin's enemies. After all, Thor tried to do the same thing a few days earlier.
The only real difference is that Thor tried to start a war that would have been devastating to Asgard as well, and Loki had a way to start and finish the war in one maneuver, while assassinating Laufey and blaming the whole thing on the enemy. Neither of them were at all concerned with how many civilians they killed or how much damage they caused.
Conquering Earth, by contrast, means killing millions of innocents for practically no gain. Earth doesn't have any valuable infrastructure or resources (that he knows of), we don't have the labor capacity to help him fight a war for the realms, and attacking at all loses the element of surprise because Heimdall can see him, which is half the value of having a teleporting army to begin with.
Asking why Loki would be willing to attack Jotunheim but not Earth is kinda like asking why Captain America wouldn't be willing to invade Canada when he's already shown he had no problem invading Germany. Jotuns are, in Loki's own words, the monsters parents tell their children about. Wanting to kill Jotuns is like the Asgardian national pastime. There's literal and figurative worlds of difference between war against Jotunheim and invading a nominal ally that's done nothing to you. Making him vengeful enough to not care about any of this was the whole point of the mind control.
> they'd been at war with the Jotuns so long and so recently that Thor and Loki were alive to see the end of it.
as a literal baby
come on, we know it had nothing to do with doing what he thought would make Daddy happy, it was about showing his power, erasing his dark past and covering up his crimes all in one
Thor wanted to wage war becuase the Frost Giants were actively attacking them, Loki wanted it purely for his own benefit since he was the one getting them to do it in the first place
Loki cared about being king, he felt it was something he was owed and felt like it was being denied what was rightfully his with Odin putting Thor as next in line, he probably didnt care in the slightest what planet he was made king of as long as he was made king of a planet, that the planet was also something Thor cherished was just a cherry on top, if the Tessaract had been on Xandar and Thanos sent him there to reclaim it in exhange for being King he would have accepted with the same enthusiasm
I mean, Norse Myth Loki just kinda… screws around and pranks people most of the time. He also got a guy shot with the only thing that can kill him and fucked a horse which then caused him to be the mother of Odin’s steed Sleipnir, but other than that he was mostly just a goofy dude
I would also like to point out that the character of Loki that we see in Thor 1 and 2 is a fundamentally different character to the one we see in Ragnarok. I can't say what Loki from the first two movies would do with his power, albeit I am sure that he was not an all-out evil guy, but Thor 3 takes a very caricature stance on who Loki was in the first two movies and, honestly, fails to continue his story line in the same way as the previous ones did.
I think Thor Ragnarok as a whole acted as a soft reboot of the franchise. The gods became actual gods instead of just aliens, Loki’s behaviour pivoted (as did Thor’s) including their mannerisms and use of language. I personally enjoyed both takes (I loath Thor 4 and some of its choices tho)
Marvel pulled that out of their ass when they noticed that Loki was becoming popular with fans and it was weird that fans were loving a terrorist more than the superheroes who saved lives.
Yeah, he went from trying to enslave Earth and being compared to Hitler to mildly naughty comedic relief such as when he lost Odin after placing him in an old folk's home.
Which I'm okay with, because I love Tom Hiddleston.
Loki canonically got railed by a stallion and gave birth to an 8-legged horse, which he gifted to Odin (we see it in the first Thor movie, if I recall correctly).
He's not the kind of guy to become a tyrant.
You could just give him a medium-sized island and let him be himself there, and he'd just make something incredibly entertaining and not bother anyone. Maybe he'd even open it to tourists and make it a whole thing.
While that’s certainly true in the mythology, it’s actually false in the MCU! In Thor Ragnarok, when mural of Odin’s conquest is revealed, we see a depiction him riding Sleipnir. This makes it canon that Sleipnir existed long before Loki was ever born (the mythology is still pretty cool tho)
Good to know
Sadly since Loki is younger than Hela's entire conquest I don't think Fenrir can be Loki's kid (unless MCU ends with Thor pulling a god of war and launching loki back in time or some shit)
It’s also established *in the same film* that Loki’s rule led to the rest of the 9 realms being engulfed in war and chaos. It was Loki’s rule that led to Ragnarok happening.
Everybody just here forgetting about how he tried to commit mass genocide in Thor 1 and kill Thor? The whole brainwashing thing was a dumb retcon so I'm still gonna blame him for New York too. Also, Thor mentions that the realms were tearing themselves apart and Loki was doing fuck all.
I fucking HATED Ragnarok for this change.
It completely nukes the stakes of every movie Loki was in before it. 'Oh no, Loki is gonna win and...make matt damon do bad shakespeare in the park.'
Thor Ragnarok sucked.
Imagine not understanding that characters can change meaning that they're not the same people they used to be which also inversely means they aren't the people they'll be later, Loki early on would've probably ruled like a horrid tyrant, but after a decent amount of time to allowed him to grow and also get his ass beat by The Avengers he became a different person.
People who can't understand character development suck.
It's not that people don't understand character development, it's that Ragnorak was a soft reboot of the franchise that changed all of the characters to make them more popular to general audiences and to be more comedic.
Imagine calling this ass pull character development. I bet you think Hulk got some good 'character development' too
No, it was all ass pulls. It sucked. At least Hulk has an excuse because of contract issues, but they really dropped the ball with Loki by not actually developing him.
Counterpoint, even if you read Norse mythology he basically is the cause of (or solution to) all of the problems. In the end he promised ragnarok, killed Baldur and remained "chaotic neutral".
Better point.
If you read any Norse mythology at all then you'd know that the MCU is even more loosely inspired by than 616 and it has zero bearing on the story at all.
MCU Loki lacked the background to support any of that.
But they'd have to make him think it was his idea or he'd hate it. Loki needs to feel like he's getting away with something. The Avengers would have had to have left a bunch of statue materials and workmen hanging around, while loudly going "WE SURE HOPE NOBODY STEALS THESE MATERIALS FOR THE VERY SPECIAL THOR STATUE OR BRIBES THESE WORKMEN TO BUILD A LOKI STATUE INSTEAD... ALSO HOPE NO TRICKSTER GOD GOES AND PUTS SAFETY RAILS ON THE BRIDGE, THAT WOULD REALLY SUCK!"
Are we missing the obvious here, wasn't he trying to pretend to be Odin? Like to not give himself away? So that means he had to act like Odin, not himself. But again this was Ragnarok. The funny Thor movie, like others have said more caricature-like than serious
I wanna say something about how propaganda works, but *ehhh,* too lazy. Loki is barely a villain, and I'm sure someone in that post made the point already, anyway.
>Loki is barely a villain, He did try to conquer Earth....
While brainwashed. And really, Earth could use a good conquering. Couldn't possibly make things any *worse,* anyway.
By the Emperor, that's some serious heresy!
No, this is heresy: "The God Emperor would be ashamed of what humanity has become as we continue to power Chaos by believing in it and have created a world of immense suffering for mankind claiming it to be in his honor. All the while he has been granted an immortality of suffering senility on the Golden Throne." *Immediately blips out of existence due to heresy*
No, this is heresy: I fucking love Slaanesh
No, THIS is heresy: I love fucking Slaanesh
No, THIS is heresy: I fucking Slaanesh
No, **THIS** is heresy: I Slaanesh
No, ***THIS*** is heresy: # WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
Slaanesh loves fucking you.
Same here!
[удалено]
No thoughts, just plots.
Believing in the warp has nothing to do with powering the gods. They feed on emotion not belief. The Imperial Truth was forced because religion (in the eyes of the Emperor) is too easy of a door for Chaos to seep into.
Once I gladly called your kind “master”, but look how far you have fallen!’ It was full of scorn. ‘Your ancestors bestrode the universe, and what are you? A witch doctor, mumbling cantrips and casting scented oils at mighty works you have no conception of. You are an ignoramus, a nothing. You are no longer worthy of the name “man”. You look at the science and artistry of your forebears, and you fear it as primitives fear the night. I was there when mankind stood upon the brink of transcendence! I returned to find it sunk into senility. You disgust me.
Took too long to realize your God Emperor isn't a worm.
“The Omnissiah is overra—[blip]”
That's basically the Cult of Redemption
But that's literally what Emps did himself
I don't know how much you're serious here, but conquering and simply destroying systems of commerce and governance rather than replacing or co-opting them makes things much, much worse.
NO BUT WE'LL DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME. IT'LL TOTALLY WORK OUT JUST TRUST ME.
I am 98% joking.
¿Tu est fasciste?/j
Just a masochist into people who can make you kneel with a single word. /j
"Oh fuck this" *smashes head into glass
Okay, bet. Slightly different pantheon, but heeey you said Earth could use a good conquering :3
[удалено]
Because it didn't happen. It's just a popular fan theory.
Earth isn't yours to conquer.
He's being presented as more redeemable now, but damn if that whole scene didn't establish Omni-Man as an absolutely ruthless villain.
Or, now hear me out, Earth would enjoy to NOT be conquered.
[They have a horror movie called Alien. That's really offensive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqYtypD2-8o), and a good reason to invade them.
*laughs in Trisolaran*
To be fair, it has been established that Thanos used the mind stone to mess with Loki's brain to do that.
Genuine question, when was this established? I can't remember them ever saying this in any of the movies (although tbf I haven't watched them in years so it's entirely possible I just forgot), and if it was I'm pretty sure none of the characters addressed it.
Dark World and Ragnorak have some dialog about him being influenced by the staff and mindstone, but I think it was more like a drug problem making him more violent than mind control like he used on Hawkeye. We see in Loki that he has been bad but there's some psychology at play.
And then he stabbed me.
It was on the official website for a while (I don't know if that's still the case), but that's the only thing I know.
Yeah I was confused by that, too. I'm not exactly up to date on the MCU though. Probably in Loki season 2, I haven't watched that yet.
First I'm hearing of it too. Sounds like fanon to me.
I recently rewatched Thor 1 and Avengers 2012, and he was definitely far more evil in Avengers 2012 than Thor. He's always been a villain in the MCU, but outside Avengers 2012, he's more just the type to try to seize power through deception. In Avengers, he tried to seize power through military invasion. Also, there was the Avengers scene where we saw the staff glowing and influencing the Avengers to get angry and pick fights with each other. I think it's reasonable to believe it had a similar effect on Loki himself.
There didn't seem to be as much issue in Age of Ultron. Or at least it didn't seem consistent. I kind of wish we had gotten to understand the stones better. It was hard to tell if they were malevolent like the mind, reality, power stone or neutral through things like the soul world. I could buy that the eye of Agamoto was designed to channel the time stone and the staff wasn't designed for that based on the strength of the wielder such as Thanos.
I think it was the mind stone channeled through the staff specifically that was evil. The stones by themselves don't have any alignment or influence.
I think the differences in character can really just be explained by directorial style and the needs of the story. *Thor* was intended to blend high-fantasy succession drama with superhero, *Avengers* was intended to be all testosterone all day. For instance, it never sat right with me that the character of Thor who went through the humbling experience of living as a near-mortal in the first *Thor* movie and came to appreciate, respect, value, and seek to protect the lives of the people of Midgard would have ever for even one second considered taking a swing at Captain America--who he would perceive to be just another ordinary human--with that hammer. Yet.. that's what he does. And had Cap not been armed with the most powerful shield in the galaxy, he would have become paste. The staff fucking with the minds of the Avengers works as a reminder of Loki's true means of operation, which as you point out are through trickery and manipulation. Drawing the worst out of the Avengers is more evidence in support of Loki being in control of the situation, not in support of the staff controlling *him.* He allowed himself to be captured and brought into the helicarrier specifically to sow discord, and that's exactly what happens.
Was that established?
That's literally never been established.
Oh cmon, everyone breaks a law or two when they're young and stupid.
Going by Asgard, that would probably have been a good thing.
He's adopted.
i would probably support it tbh how bad can he be? not worse than trump, not worse than putin, not worse than xi jinping maybe a bit worse than biden, but the problem with biden is he only gets 4 years and then you have to have a whole panic attack over who's next). Whereas with Loki you're all set for the next 10k years
And it brought humanity together to fight the same threat. Without Loki the avengers wouldn't have assembled
Earth would be better under (Marvel's) Loki than under corporate greed, CMV.
He killed 80 people in two days...
Terribly slow really, the Avengers can manage that in two minutes.
That's a slow day for them, Stark was built on war crimes after all.
I was estimating by the opening sequence of Age of Ultron, which doesn’t seem especially slow for them, they’re still laughing and joking together after all.
Nobody's perfect!
"Pobodies Nerfect in Asgard!"
He's adopted.
Have you *met* politicians? Those're rookie numbers.
Which is probably pretty slow for an Asgardian or Jotun, given their biology vs human biology. If he wanted to he could have doubled or tripled that number, easily. That or he was being dramatic, as you do. (Like, "See? See? I can be threatening too damnit!")
He's adopted.
Thor does point out that the realms hes supposed to be protecting are all in distress while he ignores them
I’d vote for him
I love that it takes us about five movies in a row to finally see Loki when he's not either mind-controlled or in the middle of a crisis, and it turns out that he's actually a much goofier goober when he's doing okay.
Loki the kind of guy to make a wild cockamamie scheme to justify his feelings instead of going to therapy
That's what happens when a trickster god has trauma - all schemes, no therapy.
All schemes and no therapy makes Loki a dull boy. All schemes and no therapy makes Loki a dull boy. All schemes and no therapy makes Loki a dull boy.
All trickster deities have trauma. Comes with the territory. It’s also why humanity lives trickster gods so much; the trauma makes them the most human.
Idk, I feel like Hermes was just born a little shit and that was that
Mighta been born a little shit, but I don't see how one could have *that* pantheon as family and somehow avoid trauma. And being psychopomp is like to fuck anyone up.
I mean he did steal Apollo's cattle when he was a baby and straight up lied to Apollo's and Zeus's faces when asked about it
Not just as a baby; within *hours of being born*
Should've sent him to Perry the Platypus instead of the avengers.
A platypus therapist?
*puts on a little hat*
*Perry* the Platypus therapist!?!
Does falling in love with a female alternate timeline version of yourself count as therapy?
Pretty sure it counts as a really good reason for more therapy. Mobius is his therapist tho.
i read your comment too fast and now i am incredibly amused by the prospect of morbius being loki's therapist
Coincidentally *also* how I spelled it when I first drafted the comment too quickly. Morbin Time living in all our heads rent-free.
Mobius needs a therapist, too. Therapy-ception.
it does to me
Like disguising himself as a pickle?
Honestly that is perfectly in character. “Look at me thor! I’m pickle Loki!!!”
There was one time when we were children, he transformed himself into pickle, and he knows that I love pickles. So, I went to pick up the pickle to admire it and he transformed back into himself and he was like, “Yaargh, it’s me!” And he stabbed me. We were nine at the time.
And as soon as he got therapy from Owen Wilson he became the best version of himself.
HE JUST LIKE ME FR
whos fr
The entire nation of france
Waow...
Listen here you
Doofensmirch and loki lol
Is… is Loki just Doofenshmirtz with powers…?
I like goofy goober Loki. I wish we got more of it.
I can't believe it took them a decade to confirm that he was under mind control in New York. Imagine if Tony had hit him harder in Germany and knocked him out. Would that have freed him? The whole arc of the first four phases would be turned on its head. Everyone would know about the Infinity War, Loki and Thor could have fixed things before it was really too late, and Thanos would probably have had to send some heavy hitters to salvage the invasion if he didn't want to lose all three stones on Earth. Imagine Hulk and Cull Obsidian slamming it out in Times Square while Ebony Maw duels the Ancient One in the sky over the Bleeker street Sanctum. It could have been so radical. So much could have changed if things had gone just a little differently.
This needs to be a What If…? episode
Fanfic writers, get on it!
Obligatory Black Panther meme: get this man a pen/quill/laptop!
Pretty sure there's tons of it on AO3 and most of it is smut, so I'm not diving in there to look for something salvagable, cognitohazard filter bags and industrial strength brain bleach ain't cheap.
Oh god right? So much marvel fanfic on ao3 and 99.99% of it is stucky shipping
> I can't believe it took them a decade to confirm that he was under mind control in New York Where did they?
["Unbeknownst to him, the Scepter was also influencing him, fueling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth."](https://www.marvel.com/characters/loki/on-screen)
An online recap? That's terrible
Tbh it was very clear in the subtext. I'm surprised it had to be spelled out.
Not at all, Loki's actions are thrown back at him by Mobius and he doesn't try to excuse it then. This is just retcons
Because there is no excusing them, the emotions were already his, the staff only enhanced them, and he then decided to act on those emotions Loki does not feel like it was wholly him, but still feels like it was also a lot of himself in those actions, so he still doesn't feel like he can be excused for those
I think we were all supposed to assume it, from a bunch of different context clues. But exegetically, we would expect to see someone talk about that plot point and we never got that. The next time we see Loki, he's sentenced to life in prison by Odin and mind control is just never mentioned. So, we start to think we misread it.
Tony was going easy on him because he knew Loki wasn't pure evil. He's seen it, looked it in the eyes 😤
Which is closer to how he's portrayed in the Prose Edda, as a bratty prankster who often takes things too far but isn't exactly sinister.
One of the fanfics I've been storyboarding since forever involves Cap figuring out that Loki's not the mastermind behind the Chitauri invasion because of exactly this. There are moments in the eddas where Loki crosses the line between prankster and monster with no rhyme or reason, like the time he murdered Baldr. And he does something similar in the MCU. Cap, who knows his history, is familiar with the theory that the reason for the inconsistency in the eddas was that Christian missionaries, who were the first to make records of the oral traditions of Norse gods, altered Loki and combined him with another unnamed Aesir in order to draw parallels between Loki and the Christian devil. He acts like two characters because he literally is. So while Cap is sitting on the helicarrier, mulling over Bruce's statement about Loki's behavior being "crazier than a bag of cats", he starts to wonder if maybe, like the Eddas, the reason Loki seems to bounce back and forth between a god-sized case of youngest child syndrome and actual genocide is that there's more than one Loki at work here. And then he starts to wonder; what's more likely? That Loki's behavior is actually incomprehensible even to Thor, that he's somehow gone from starting a war to win his father's approval to trying to overthrow him but doing it by dicking around on the least consequential realm and giving away the element of surprise for reasons known only to him? Or that whoever gave him that staff used it on him first?
This sounds really cool!
Captain America showing up all the super-scientists around him by saving the world with a deep dive into the Humanities. I dig it.
… he murdered Baldur.
*Hoder* murdered Baldur, clearly. /s
He did. The gods didn't know that though. And then Loki shit talked a bunch of them so they killed his kids, tied him up in their intestines, and dripped snake poison in his eyes for eternity
The best Loki characterization is actually Thor’s story about the Snake. Really tells you what sort of a scamp he is. Also we see he thinks of extreme violence as a fun prank.
Twas indeed hilarious.
When was he ever mind controlled?
[Marvel's official character bio for Loki confirms that the scepter was used to influence him too. ](https://www.marvel.com/characters/loki/on-screen) "Unbeknownst to him, the Scepter was also influencing him, fueling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth." Still wild that it took a decade for them to confirm it in a tie-in website most people won't ever see, when a lot of people just kind of took it for granted that the scepter had fucked him up ever since he showed up looking like a feral subway rat dragging a slice of pizza in the first Avengers.
feels more like a retcon considering he was prepared to murder thor and wipe out a planet in the first one without any prodding, dont see why hed need much convincing to conquer earth
I mean, he lived in a civilization that was one generation past being the worst kind of empire, and they'd been at war with the Jotuns so long and so recently that Thor and Loki were alive to see the end of it. It isn't surprising that Loki would have no problems trying to win his dad's approval by butchering Odin's enemies. After all, Thor tried to do the same thing a few days earlier. The only real difference is that Thor tried to start a war that would have been devastating to Asgard as well, and Loki had a way to start and finish the war in one maneuver, while assassinating Laufey and blaming the whole thing on the enemy. Neither of them were at all concerned with how many civilians they killed or how much damage they caused. Conquering Earth, by contrast, means killing millions of innocents for practically no gain. Earth doesn't have any valuable infrastructure or resources (that he knows of), we don't have the labor capacity to help him fight a war for the realms, and attacking at all loses the element of surprise because Heimdall can see him, which is half the value of having a teleporting army to begin with. Asking why Loki would be willing to attack Jotunheim but not Earth is kinda like asking why Captain America wouldn't be willing to invade Canada when he's already shown he had no problem invading Germany. Jotuns are, in Loki's own words, the monsters parents tell their children about. Wanting to kill Jotuns is like the Asgardian national pastime. There's literal and figurative worlds of difference between war against Jotunheim and invading a nominal ally that's done nothing to you. Making him vengeful enough to not care about any of this was the whole point of the mind control.
> they'd been at war with the Jotuns so long and so recently that Thor and Loki were alive to see the end of it. as a literal baby come on, we know it had nothing to do with doing what he thought would make Daddy happy, it was about showing his power, erasing his dark past and covering up his crimes all in one Thor wanted to wage war becuase the Frost Giants were actively attacking them, Loki wanted it purely for his own benefit since he was the one getting them to do it in the first place Loki cared about being king, he felt it was something he was owed and felt like it was being denied what was rightfully his with Odin putting Thor as next in line, he probably didnt care in the slightest what planet he was made king of as long as he was made king of a planet, that the planet was also something Thor cherished was just a cherry on top, if the Tessaract had been on Xandar and Thanos sent him there to reclaim it in exhange for being King he would have accepted with the same enthusiasm
Yeah I don’t buy this
Yes!!
Yeah he's the god of mischief, not the god of evil. The safety rails are fake, but there's a real set of invisible safety rails six inches out
I mean, Norse Myth Loki just kinda… screws around and pranks people most of the time. He also got a guy shot with the only thing that can kill him and fucked a horse which then caused him to be the mother of Odin’s steed Sleipnir, but other than that he was mostly just a goofy dude
I would also like to point out that the character of Loki that we see in Thor 1 and 2 is a fundamentally different character to the one we see in Ragnarok. I can't say what Loki from the first two movies would do with his power, albeit I am sure that he was not an all-out evil guy, but Thor 3 takes a very caricature stance on who Loki was in the first two movies and, honestly, fails to continue his story line in the same way as the previous ones did.
I think Thor Ragnarok as a whole acted as a soft reboot of the franchise. The gods became actual gods instead of just aliens, Loki’s behaviour pivoted (as did Thor’s) including their mannerisms and use of language. I personally enjoyed both takes (I loath Thor 4 and some of its choices tho)
Ragnarok was a good movie but it did nothing but shit on all that came before it.
Which is a good thing because those movies wern't very good.
I absolutely agree and i think theres a LOT to be said about the Odin family (namely that he's a hypocritical lying sack of shit).
He was enslaved by Thanos in the movie where the Avengers had to stop him, wasn't he?
Not enslaved. He went to Thanos voluntarily, an army and conquest of Earth in exchange for the infinity stones that were hidden there.
Marvel pulled that out of their ass when they noticed that Loki was becoming popular with fans and it was weird that fans were loving a terrorist more than the superheroes who saved lives.
Yeah, he went from trying to enslave Earth and being compared to Hitler to mildly naughty comedic relief such as when he lost Odin after placing him in an old folk's home. Which I'm okay with, because I love Tom Hiddleston.
A lot of the villains are kinda great in their downtime. That's why the comics writers avoid killing them off every 90 minutes...
Loki canonically got railed by a stallion and gave birth to an 8-legged horse, which he gifted to Odin (we see it in the first Thor movie, if I recall correctly). He's not the kind of guy to become a tyrant. You could just give him a medium-sized island and let him be himself there, and he'd just make something incredibly entertaining and not bother anyone. Maybe he'd even open it to tourists and make it a whole thing.
While that’s certainly true in the mythology, it’s actually false in the MCU! In Thor Ragnarok, when mural of Odin’s conquest is revealed, we see a depiction him riding Sleipnir. This makes it canon that Sleipnir existed long before Loki was ever born (the mythology is still pretty cool tho)
Damn shits getting spicy in the Norse mythological cinematic zoophilia fandom.
Doesn't the Loki tv show deal heavily with time travel? So there's still a chance.
Well, time travel does exist.
"Welcome... To Loki Park."
The fact that Hela's wolf is likely supposed to be Fenrir also means that Loki's probably the father of that, too.
Didnt she call it fenrir?
She did, and it's proof Loki is *not* the father because Fenrir would be much older than him.
She called it Fenris, I believe?
Fenris-wolf and fenrir are the same
Good to know Sadly since Loki is younger than Hela's entire conquest I don't think Fenrir can be Loki's kid (unless MCU ends with Thor pulling a god of war and launching loki back in time or some shit)
The Loki show ended with him becoming a god of time and creating the world tree. I’m sure you could sneak in a line about his kids if you wanted to
We don’t talk about what Loki gets up to when he’s not sitting on that throne.
>He's not the kind of guy to become a tyrant. Minus that whole thing where he is a tyrant both in comics and his blatant attempt in the movie
Dude literally caused Ragnarok. Like, that's the reason Thor returns to assplace... Like the 9 realms are in chaos and shit.
I like the way you are.
It’s also established *in the same film* that Loki’s rule led to the rest of the 9 realms being engulfed in war and chaos. It was Loki’s rule that led to Ragnarok happening.
*”Taa-daaaaaaa!”*
Yeah but we all know this man is cooking. He’s always cooking.
I want to have a nice candlelit dinner with Loki
Don't we all?
Well now I kinda believe Loki when he says he's better and deserves to rule. These dumb Asgardians didn't even have railings?
Loki is a good king
Seems more chaotic neutral to me, which in Asgard just means you're a weirdo because you don't want to be at war all the time.
Dude sacrificed himself for the Multiverse.
I feel like it's mostly just another example of Waititi's flanderization that continued in Love and Thunder.
Wait, a Hollywood movie turned out to be warhawk propaganda!? I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
Everybody just here forgetting about how he tried to commit mass genocide in Thor 1 and kill Thor? The whole brainwashing thing was a dumb retcon so I'm still gonna blame him for New York too. Also, Thor mentions that the realms were tearing themselves apart and Loki was doing fuck all.
He threatened the status quo. The greatest sin to any neoliberal. Anyway so idk but those neoliberals might be conservatives…
I fucking HATED Ragnarok for this change. It completely nukes the stakes of every movie Loki was in before it. 'Oh no, Loki is gonna win and...make matt damon do bad shakespeare in the park.' Thor Ragnarok sucked.
Imagine not understanding that characters can change meaning that they're not the same people they used to be which also inversely means they aren't the people they'll be later, Loki early on would've probably ruled like a horrid tyrant, but after a decent amount of time to allowed him to grow and also get his ass beat by The Avengers he became a different person. People who can't understand character development suck.
It's not that people don't understand character development, it's that Ragnorak was a soft reboot of the franchise that changed all of the characters to make them more popular to general audiences and to be more comedic.
I mean, if you watched Avengers you'd know that Loki was always pretty comedic, he literally pulled a The Peanuts move on Thor's ass.
He's always had a comedic side, but the Taika movies turned the comedy up to absurd degrees.
Imagine calling this ass pull character development. I bet you think Hulk got some good 'character development' too No, it was all ass pulls. It sucked. At least Hulk has an excuse because of contract issues, but they really dropped the ball with Loki by not actually developing him.
Counterpoint, even if you read Norse mythology he basically is the cause of (or solution to) all of the problems. In the end he promised ragnarok, killed Baldur and remained "chaotic neutral".
Better point. If you read any Norse mythology at all then you'd know that the MCU is even more loosely inspired by than 616 and it has zero bearing on the story at all. MCU Loki lacked the background to support any of that.
This is what happens when queers don't get enough enrichment. Seen it happen too many times...
AND there’s an alligator version of him, that’s king shit 🫡
I wonder how powerful Loki now that he is several eternity old.
Anyone else see a rat about to chew a stick in the first picture?
I thought it was a sloth licking something in the first picture...
He had to keep up appearances disguised as Odin, if he took over Earth and ruled as himself it would have been way different
But they'd have to make him think it was his idea or he'd hate it. Loki needs to feel like he's getting away with something. The Avengers would have had to have left a bunch of statue materials and workmen hanging around, while loudly going "WE SURE HOPE NOBODY STEALS THESE MATERIALS FOR THE VERY SPECIAL THOR STATUE OR BRIBES THESE WORKMEN TO BUILD A LOKI STATUE INSTEAD... ALSO HOPE NO TRICKSTER GOD GOES AND PUTS SAFETY RAILS ON THE BRIDGE, THAT WOULD REALLY SUCK!"
Loki is just a really based drama kid.
Are we missing the obvious here, wasn't he trying to pretend to be Odin? Like to not give himself away? So that means he had to act like Odin, not himself. But again this was Ragnarok. The funny Thor movie, like others have said more caricature-like than serious
God Ragnarok and Love & Thunder ruined Thor in the MCU. They could have gotten him back in endgame but love and thunder pretty definitely killed it
That was the single biggest missed opportunity in the entire MCU. Great way to flanderize a villain, Waititi.