Catlady48

Hey guys,......Is Loki army dead?

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"Lady Loki

Lines by me, colors by Carlos Lopez"

Peter: it's his therapy cat, why?

Thor, confused: why does he require an animal to get therapy?

Peter, laughing: No- no- no, it helps his recovery, she's his emotional support cat, she's there for comfort and to help him-

Thor, cutting him off: interesting, many thanks.

That evening, Thor makes his way through the tower holding a small kitten.

Thor knock on Lokis door: brother, open the door.

Loki, from inside his room: why must I do that?

Thor: I have a gift for you.

Loki, suspicious: why?

Thor: man of spiders informed me of healing animals.

Loki opens the door, Thor stands there with a black kitten and hands it over to them.

Thor: you have seen many horrors, this creature will help you recover.

Loki, now holding the cat: How will thsi help- I don't need this Thor, take it back.

Thor: I cannot, you need it and I was told they help. Farewell brother.

Thor leaves, Loki sits on thier bed holding the small cat who looks up at them.

Doodle of tiny Loki being lonely. (But not as lonely as he feels, as he still has Ikol perched nearby.)

"He got Thor banished" - his plan to prank Thor and delay his coronation went off the rails

"He usurped the throne" - Odin decided to take a nap at the worst possible moment, Loki just happened to be there

"He attacked warriors four and Heimdall" - they betrayed and tried to kill him, he panicked

"He attacked NYC" - he got captured and tortured&brainwashed by one of the biggest threats in the universe, while trying to kill himself

"He got Frigga killed" - he didn't even tell Kurse to go in her direction

Etc.

I think it was also made for people who wanted him to stop suffering, without caring about the journey of how he got there. Or for people who wanted a quick fix on the antagonism Loki would face from all fronts. So that's why when Season 2 was "kinder" to him (still TVA Loki and I haven't watched it, because it's a shit show still) they jumped and said "well look now, not only is he happy, as a holder of all the timelines, he has dignity". It's actually really sad to see that people who wanted better for him, settled for the worst when it came to the journey of the route it took. That they were okay with him being butchered and turned OOC, and then finally... A fucking tree.

I think I have too much of a spine to stick with Marvel after that, which is why I never watched Season 2, and it's what pro series stans have been yelling at my face since Season 1 anyway, besides I will NOT encourage the disrespect to the long time fans of the OG character. Without us, they wouldn't have the kind of popularity that was there around Loki for them to exploit in the first place. However since most of us are queer, minorities and women, they shoved us out of the way for a mainstream (white or otherwise privileged) audience that didn't know how to feel about og Loki, until the series gave them reasons by making a TVA Loki that twisted all his attributes and traits to fit what they thought about him all along. Then they "redeemed" that twisted imposter. And now suddenly everyone fucking loves him.

Okay, so I want to talk about why Loki stabs Thor— or at least, why I think Loki stabs Thor. Because it’s become a bit of a joke in the MCU that Loki just goes around randomly trying to kill/hurt/stab Thor constantly for no reason, and I’m tired. Someone has definitely analyzed this scene before, but I can’t find those metas right now, and I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring because I keep thinking about it and why it speaks far more to his favor than not.

Just as a start off, Loki has (if you count TR) canonically stabbed Thor twice in the MCU, that’s it (unless you count the metaphorical kind, which would increase that number drastically). Once when they are children (which we lack context for), and in this scene right here:

THOR: Look at this! Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?

Thor and Loki have been going at it for a while at this point. And neither of them seem too committed to really hurting each other more than necessary. They’re both tired, they’re both scared (though they wouldn’t admit it), and they’re both hurt (in more than one sense).

And then Thor tries to reason with Loki again. He holds him still, leaving no room for escape, and forces him to confront the destruction this is causing, and Loki does.

Loki looks around and sees, truly, what is going on around him, and he’s horrified. He doesn’t want this, this wasn’t his goal, and now that it’s happening, it’s nothing like what he thought it would be.

And then we get this:

LOKI: (tries to look away) It's too late. It's too late to stop it.

This isn’t gloating, this is grief. He looks like he genuinely wants to put an end to the violence, but he doesn’t think it’s possible. He’s in over his head.

But Thor hasn’t given up yet. He still believes that they can work together, that their bond is strong enough to get through to Loki now that the seed of doubt has been planted. And you can practically see it working on Loki’s face. That he’s at war with his goals and his true desires and truly wants to say yes.

But Loki’s backed into a corner. At this point it’s important to remember he’s still under Thanos’s thumb, physically linked to the Other, being manipulated by the mind stone, and under threat and duress. To Loki, the choice Thor is giving him is not one he has the power to make. Still, he can’t trust himself to say no. He’s compromised, emotionally, and as long as Thor’s there daring to believe in him, he’s in danger.

THOR: No. We can. Together.

So Loki no longer wants to win, but he can’t, can’t say that, and so he gives himself an out the only way he thinks is possible. If he can’t make himself say no, and he can’t let himself say yes, he has to put distance between them, he has to get Thor to stop trying.

And so he stabs him— with a dagger that nominally would never do major harm to an Asgardian, aimed in an incredibly non lethal area.

To Loki at this moment, he’s acting out of desperate self preservation (admittedly in a way that is in reality self destructive, but, still…) And it works! His terrible plan works! (Yay for everyone but Loki!)

God he looks heartbroken. It’s like he knows if this works that Thor will give up on him, maybe, but that’s what he’s wanted, right? Right? (Wrong!)

And finally we have the iconic line:

LOKI: Sentiment

It’s said in a mocking tone, but not necessarily to Thor. This, to me (and other people I’ve heard analyze this scene) is said to himself. For letting himself be swayed by what he considers his greatest weakness, sentiment (and, possibly even more, Thor himself).

I don’t have a gif for this one, but I love when people reference him leaving the staff behind. Because it’s very clearly an act of helpfulness through omission. Loki cannot accept Thor’s help, or his entreatment to help, so he does the next best thing— leave the staff— which effectively grants the Avengers the final (literal) key they need in order to win.

I always think of this scene as a great climax of all the pressure Loki is under to perform in this movie. His mask breaks, and he nearly gives in, but in the end his fear is too strong. And so, like a trapped animal, he lashes out in order to remove himself from the situation.

I’m pretty sure that some people have pointed it out before, but I’ve never actually seen those posts:

“After. After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend. As a balm. And I would cooperate.”

First I’d like to note that Loki doesn’t seem to assume that Thor would go “you can’t torture Loki he’s my brother”. He legit thinks that Thor would let SHIELD torture him. 

Anyway, the way the Nat scene is filmed totally makes it seem like Loki is projecting. Note his reflection in the glass:

And then we get:

“You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are part of you. And they will never go away.”

“But they are part of you. And they will never go away.” Regarding this statement, I’ve been thinking about the article where Marvel confirms that Loki was being influenced by the scepter. Under normal circumstances, he never would have invaded Earth. (There are fics where Loki falls into the Void only to emerge on Earth instead of Thanos’ hands - and it’s not like Loki’s first thought upon arriving to Earth was to conquer it.) But because of the scepter’s influence, it magnifies Loki’s emotions like rage and vengeance. We never actually know how long Loki was exposed to the scepter. How long did Thanos have it? Was Loki exposed to its influence for a long time even before he initiated the invasion? 

Maybe, on some level, Loki knows that the scepter was influencing him somehow. Bringing out his worst emotions. All these people he killed during the invasion - that was on his hands. He was responsible. Everyone else is also holding him responsible too. Didn’t matter that he did this under duress. @magicmastered did a piece on why Loki didn’t tell others he was tortured (typical me forgot the link so…) and one of the reasons cited was that in a warrior culture like Asgard, Loki was the one who would be seen as weak because he wasn’t strong enough to resist the torture. He gave in - his fault. It doesn’t matter that there were external circumstances - being tortured, mind stone’s influence etc. Loki believes that the person who invaded NYC is Loki - it’s who he is, he is a despicable criminal.

Re: Loki’s assumption that Thor would let SHIELD torture him/Thor and Fury’s conversation, this is how I remember that going (well, paraphrased):

Fury: You think you can make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?

Thor: He craves vengeance, upon me. There is no pain that would prise this need from him.

Fury: A lot of guys think that, till the pain [stops/starts/i forgot].

Thor: What are you asking me to do?

Fury: I’m asking you what you’re prepared to do.

(Side note: Holy crap, Fury.)

Thor’s reaction seems less “what in the crap?!?!?” and more “it’s not going to work, there’s no point”. I don’t believe Thor would’ve tortured Loki. He’s just not in total disbelief at Fury’s suggestion.

Loki’s expectations of Thor’s violence do make a sort of sense, when you consider that at this point he genuinely believes that Thor threw him off the Bifrost, and Thor didn’t really help matters when his first move upon seeing Loki was to grab him by the neck and drag him out of a plane. And then, right before Tony knocked him out-of-frame, Thor threatened Loki with Mjolnir.

It’s also, I think, an effect of Loki’s depression. He thinks Thor doesn’t care about him, and would take Thor’s rough introduction, the fact that the first thing Thor talked about was the Tesseract, and Thor’s threat as further proof.

And yes, I love that part of the Loki and Nat scene for that reason exactly. He’s projecting so much there. That section you quoted is a direct parallel to his time with Thanos (while also being true of Nat).

YES. Loki blames himself for NY. In his mind, if he was just strong enough, he could’ve held off and not broken. If anything it makes it worse than if he’d just woken up one day and decided to invade Earth and kill a bunch of people. He’d be a murderer but not weak. This way, as he sees it, he’s both.

I’m still making up my mind on what was going on with the invasion. I agree that if any of Thanos’ other people led that invasion there would’ve been a far higher death toll…but I’m also not convinced that they would’ve done the conquering Earth thing in the first place. Thanos’ big thing was getting the Tesseract. Controlling Earth (directly or indirectly) probably wouldn’t have been much of a concern for him.

And I’m just not sure Loki’d care enough at that point, what with the scepter’s influence. Note that up until Thor forced him to really see the destruction, Loki looked like this:

Not exactly “I wish I didn’t have to do this.”

Not consciously, anyway. I can buy that on some level he didn’t want there to be as much of a slaughter as there would’ve been, but I doubt it was part of his conscious decision-making process.

If Loki was sabotaging the invasion consciously, I can see how keeping down the death toll could’ve been a factor…just maybe not one he was himself aware of.

But “you pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors” is definitely coming from somewhere….

…Maybe Thanos was initially planning on doing his usual genocide routine on Earth, because why not and he’s there anyway, but eventually went with having Loki rule it instead. That genocide would have had a death toll in the billions, as opposed to Loki’s and the Chitauri’s total of 155 that we know of (assuming that Nat wasn’t exaggerating and that we put all deaths from the PEGASUS base’s collapse are on Loki).

Loki’s self-blame may be even worse because of his particular role with regards to retrieving the Tesseract.

If Thanos knew about the Tesseract’s location before he acquired Loki, why didn’t he come to Earth earlier? Was there something stopping him? If that’s the case, Loki would’ve been a way around that (since he was able to go to Earth pretty easily). Ergo, if it wasn’t for Loki, Thanos wouldn’t have been able to come for the Tesseract for whatever reason.

If Thanos didn’t know where the Tesseract was before he got Loki…then Loki is most likely how they found out, considering how much the Other thinks of Loki’s knowledge of it. Therefore, if it wasn’t for Loki, Thanos wouldn’t have known to send anyone to Earth.

Either way, that’s even more things that Loki could blame himself for.

And it hadn’t even occurred to me that Loki might have been the reason Thanos knew where to find the Tesseract. Now my heart hurts even more. Because it makes sense. He definitely would have been aware that it was on Earth, wouldn’t he? Because it was Odin who initially placed it there.

As for the deeper meaning behind the whole “you pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors” line, I always assumed this was about Loki rationalising to himself that he wanted to rule Earth so that he wouldn’t have to feel so trapped and helpless. So he wouldn’t have to dwell on the fact that he really had no choice. He needs to believe that he’s causing all this death and destruction for his own purposes, because even if he feels some degree of guilt for his actions, that’s preferable to doing it because he was simply too weak to fight back. I realise that the novels are not technically canon, but there’s a line in the Infinity War novelization that implies Loki believed Thor would be able to endure the effects of the power stone—and that syncs up perfectly with the notion that he believed himself weak for breaking under similar torture.

I’m trying to prove a point to someone who thinks he is a garbage character that doesn’t deserve fans

Thor week day 2 - family relationships/favourite scenes

But after this is over Thor is going to go back to Asgard, and Odin is going to have to find a way to deal with the fact that his heir the Crown Prince (now his only son, and only possible heir) committed treason and Odin tried and failed to kill him for it.  This is not the sort of thing that an absolute monarch can just let slide.

Oh, but wait, there’s Loki in the mix! Clearly this was all some plot of Loki’s, and he managed to trick or persuade or enchant or deceive Thor into doing his bidding. It’s all good guys, no need for strife between crown and crown prince factions, it’s all Loki’s fault. Again. Whether Odin actually believes it or not is irrelevant (though I think it’s entirely possible he would; it’s not like Loki hasn’t done such things before) what’s relevant is that it would avert a civil war in Asgard by sacrificing one goat that Odin’s already proved his willingness to kill.

By taking Loki out of his cell Thor changed his life sentence to a death sentence. And even if Thor didn’t think of that, Loki sure as hell would. 

Whether Odin would actually go this route kind of doesn’t matter, because Loki always thinks the worst of Odin… and, in this case, has no reasons to think otherwise. Nor any reason to think that Thor would try to protect him (even if Thor could, what with being in the doghouse from that pesky treason and all) because Thor has not given a visible rat’s ass about Loki’s well-being since they got back to Asgard. Hell, Thor just now explicitly denounced their brotherhood and expressed his willingness to do the killing himself.

Ugh I am just steamed about this now. I try not to go all “omg asgard is jerks” on people all the time but fuck, look at this from Loki’s point of view. Loki has plenty of very good reasons to think that if he goes back to Asgard, Odin will kill him. Thor has told him that if he tries to run away, Thor will kill him. The Warriors 3 have told him that if he does anything to hurt Thor, THEY will kill him. FAKING HIS OWN DEATH AND RUNNING OFF WAS LITERALLY THE ONLY THING LOKI COULD DO TO NOT DIE.

He was mortalyl injured and just so happened to survive

it’s just that after he didn’t die, he saw, for the above reasons, no issue in not letting everyone now that he was still alive

also