“Kneel Before Me” - Loki

Loki:

Tom & Charities: Red Nose Day 2019

I’ve seen enough times that in discussions, people almost always bring up this argument that Loki intentionally faked his death and count it as one of his wrong doings. It has specially happened more often after TR and its retcons and the narrative’s attempt to dismiss and diminish Loki’s pain. They claim that Loki faked his death twice, in Thor 1 and TDW. Here’s why this assumption is wrong:

1. In Thor(2011) Loki committed suicide.

Everything Loki did in Thor 1 was to prove to Odin that he is a worthy son. He is not in a right mental state. After he finds out about the truth of his parentage the thin steel rod that’s been holding his brain together snaps according to Kenneth Branagh. So he thinks by eliminating the danger of Jotunheim he is doing what Odin wants of him. Because Odin wanted to use Loki to bring permanent peace. So Loki in his disordered state of mind thinks by attempting genocide and killing all the monsters once and for all, he is doing his kingdom and Odin a favor. Because he is nullifying the enemy’s danger like what Odin wanted to use him for in the first place. All he wants is Odin’s approval and acknowledgment. In the scene when he is holding the Gungnir, he is literally and figuratively hanging by a thin thread on the edge of an abyss. He tells Odin:

“I could have done it father! I could have done it! For you! For all of us!”

He looks hopefully to Odin. This is his last hope to be accepted. Instead all Loki hears is a disappointed “No Loki”. All Loki sees is disapproval, rejection and disappointment. This breaks Loki. He has lost everything.

And then Loki lets go, not just physically but mentally. He doesn’t see any place, love and acceptance for himself. He doesn’t want to live anymore. He lets go and commits suicide.

Possible counterarguments:

“Loki wanted to escape from the consequences of his actions.”

All Loki cares about at that point is Odin’s approval. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong. He has grown up in a racist culture that sees Jotuns as monsters who are inferior, monsters and lesser people. He was also the rightful king at the time that was betrayed by his subjects and since Asgard is a monarchy, the king’s order is the law and he can’t be punished for his actions as the king.

“Loki knew he would survive.”

According to the “Thor the Dark World Prelude” comic which is part of MCU canon the general knowledge is that when someone falls in the void, they will die. Everyone believed Loki died. That means this is also what Loki believed to happen. It was Frigga who searched for Loki and finally found out that Loki is alive.

“Why didn’t Loki tell his family that he is alive?”

First reason is that Loki has broken ties with his family at that time. He is hurt and heartbroken and probably doesn’t want to see them again. Second, when Heimdall could finally see him he was with the Chitauri and had the scepter. We know before that he was with Thanos and possibly under torture and most probably he would rather be found. Frigga only found him after he was “ready to lead”. And since neither her nor Heimdall knew about Thanos’ involvement, we can conclude that it was Thanos who stopped Loki from being found.

Where does this assumption come from that Loki’s suicide was his attempt at faking his death?

Because there is a scene in TR, in which Loki jokes and laughs about his attempted suicide. As if it was a funny and unimportant thing. Just a story for entertainment. This scene is put in the movie to show all the pain Loki went through was nothing, to further the retcon that all Loki does, are tricks and he does them because he has no other reason except that he is the god of mischief.

2. In TDW Loki didn’t intentionally fake his death. He only survived.

I explained this many times before. So I just copy my explanation from another one of my posts.

“Loki didn’t fake his death to usurp Odin:

1. Loki’s illusions can’t hold upon contact. They get either dissolved or disoriented. In other words they are like images and projections. They are not solid unless they are put on an actual person. Like when Loki was putting illusion on Thor and himself, or when he was Odin and Thor had grabbed him and the illusion didn’t wear off until Loki wanted. So Loki actually was stabbed through the chest to save Thor.

2. The stabbing through chest wasn’t and couldn’t have been planned. Loki didn’t know that the blade couldn’t kill the Kursed. He couldn’t know that Kursed would then impale him on the blade. He also didn’t know if Kursed would hold him on the blade until he died or throw him away sooner. So when he activated that grenade he did it with complete knowledge that it could kill him too. So he also didn’t know that he would survive the stabbing and he didn’t have any hope for it. Because he instantly activated sth that could kill him too. So his apology to Thor was also sincere.

Loki’s sacrifice was real. His only fault!!! was that he survived. And when he survived he took advantage of his situation. He didn’t inform Thor because Thor had promised to return him to his cell. He usurped the throne to take revenge on Odin and in doing so he not only protected Thor and his friends from the consequence of their treason, he made sure to separate the Tesseract and the Aether. Not to mention he offered the throne to Thor and Thor refused.”[X]

Where does this assumption come from that Loki faked his death in TDW?

Thor tells Loki: “You faked your own death” in TR and then continues to blame Loki for everything that happened. And because Thor is the hero of the narrative, people accept everything he says as the truth. It doesn’t matter to them that in the same movie Thor constantly throw things at Loki to know if he is actually there which further proves that Loki’s illusions are not solid.

I don’t know if Loki is into that sort of thing, FDA, but I will certainly try.

Loki isn’t lying here, he’s not imagining anything.

HE WAS THE RIGHTFUL KING OF ASGARD AND HE WAS BETRAYED.

Odin fell into Odinsleep™ , Thor was banished. The line of succession FELL ON HIM. We see the soldiers giving him Gungnir and Frigga approving it.

I’m making this post because I’ve seen several people claim that the news about Loki getting his own TV show is fake. Well, it’s not fake and that show is most likely going to happen.

Variety is a reliable source and they wouldn’t make this up. It’s true that we don’t have official confirmation from Marvel/Disney but the fact that they haven’t denied it either says a lot. Confirming a Loki TV show would be very spoilery right now so I wouldn’t expect an official announcement before Avengers 4.

Jeremy Conrad (who is also a quite reliable source when it comes to MCU information) confirmed Loki and Wanda are getting TV shows:

He hinted Tom Hiddleston’s contract wasn’t over before Variety’s leak so Loki getting a TV show makes a lot of sense:

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: Tom Hiddleston’s publicist retweeted the news on twitter (even though it was later deleted, the screenshots don’t lie):

Tom Hiddleston Tossing Things… 

I think the majority of us agree with the fact that Loki, one of the most complex and acclaimed MCU characters, deserved a better ending to his redemption arc. I have decided to write this post in order to spread some hope that this is not the last we’ve seen of the God of Mischief.

First of all, his death was not convincing nor fitting for a character that is known for dying and coming back in almost every movie he is in (and don’t forget about the comic books). If the directors intended to make his death believable, they should have made him use his powers, try to trick Thanos with his illusions or attempt to fake his own death again and ultimately fail. He should have had a good plan only for it to be disrupted by Thanos and the fact that he doesn’t even seem to try makes me think either Loki is not dead or he let Thanos kill him on purpose.

It’s interesting that neither Loki nor Doctor Strange seem to use the infinity stones they own against Thanos. Even Thanos acknowledges that Strange doesn’t “use his greatest weapon”. But we know that Strange made use of the time stone to see into the future and realised that he (and half the universe) had to die in order to win in the end (presumably). Maybe Loki knew this as well. Maybe his death was also necessary in order to reach that outcome and that’s why he let Thanos kill him.

“The Tesseract can show visions of the future, which may or may not come true. The people who have seen this power are the Red Skull, Eric Selvig, and Hawkeye […]” [source] Loki seemed to be looking at the tesseract very intently before saying “I assure you, brother, the sun will shine on us again” to Thor. The tesseract could have shown him a vision of a future in which Thanos is defeated and Loki’s brought back to life somehow, hence the optimism of his statement. Also, I’m 100% sure this line is foreshadowing, it’s too cryptic and striking.

Also, it’s odd that Loki just drops the tesseract on the floor and doesn’t even try to pick it up while Thanos is distracted, considering he seemed so unwilling to give it away only a moment before. I guess he was too busy doing… whatever it is he was doing while Thanos was beating the crap out of the Hulk and killing Heimdall. Because, really, where was he? If the Russos’ intention was to make us believe Loki was out of options and would finally meet his definitive end, it was not a good idea to have the audience lose sight of him for 4 whole minutes, especially since he’s a character who has faked his own death before and whose most distinctive traits are being mischievous and unpredictable.

When being asked about Loki’s death at Ace Con 2018, Tom Hiddleston said “I’ve known about that scene for two years. I met with Marvel in May 2016, and they were actually telling me the story of Ragnarok with concept arts and images. […] My whole journey through making Thor: Ragnarok I knew this was coming” [source] Tom knew about his Infinity War scene back in 2016 and yet he said this about Loki on September 2017: “He’s cunning and transformative and changeable and will do everything he can to survive. He’s the trickster. He’s the God of mischief.” [source]

Tom Hiddleston also had a reassuring message for fans who were worried about Loki before Infinity War was released: “Loki is the God of Mischief, the Lord of Misrule, an Agent of Chaos. Chaos isn’t something that’s threatening to Loki and everything’s fine.” [source]

Even Loki himself reminded us who he was right before being ‘killed’ by Thanos. “I, Loki, prince of Asgard, Odinson, the rightful king of Jotunheim, God of Mischief […]”. His last words “you will never be a god” also point out the fact that he is a god (and Thanos is not). This line sounds too cryptic as well, it’s almost like Loki is telling Thanos “I know something you don’t”.

It is also known some members of the cast filmed at least one scene in Durham Cathedral (2017), and Tom Hiddleston was supposedly among them. Although he has not been photographed, different people claimed to have spotted him on the set.

The scene(s) shot in the cathedral never made it into Infinity War. However, it is unclear whether this footage was shot for Avengers 4. It’s important to remember that this location was also used to film Thor’s vision in Age of Ultron, a vision which seemingly represented Hel. We also know that Loki’s death in Thor: The Dark World was originally intended to be real, although not definitive, as Thor was supposed to travel to Hel and retrieve Loki in Thor: Ragnarok. [source] Perhaps this idea has not been fully discarded, which would be a plausible explanation as to why Chris, Tessa and Tom were spotted filming in Durham. It could be assumed that Loki is truly dead this time, but not for good: Thor would go to Hel in order to bring him back from the dead, hopefully in Avengers 4, or in another Thor movie. You can read more about this on this Reddit thread.

It’s actually a fact that Loki will appear in the next Avengers movie, as these leaked photos of the A4 set confirm.

These photos suggest that Avengers 4 will recreate the Battle of New York. The widespread assumption that Loki’s presence in the pictures indicates a flashback is wrong, as we can see Scott and an older Tony in the company of Captain America, who is wearing his old costume (meaning he is Steve’s past self). Thor and Loki are also dressed as in the battle of New York and Loki is gagged. He has something that looks like the tesseract in his hand and this doesn’t add up to the events of the first Avengers movie, which could mean that time travel is involved. This alone doesn’t prove that Loki is alive in the current timeline, but maybe his death can be reversed if the Avengers alter the past. In any case, at least we can be sure that his past self will play a role in the movie.

Kevin Feige tweeted this letter dedicated to the fans after Infinity War was released. We can see Thanos’ gauntlet as well as a Loki keychain in the picture, next to the letter, which seems suspicious since Loki’s role in IW was pretty limited.

When it comes to Kevin Feige, it is also important to point out that he has barely spoken about Loki’s death. In fact, when asked specifically about Loki, he only said that the scene was emotional, as were some other scenes in the movie [source]. He seemed to avoid answering the question by beating about the bush and repeating the same thing over again. One would think that if this were Loki’s final scene, Feige would have something more to say, considering that Loki is a fan favorite and that Feige himself always seemed to appreciate the character.

In addition, Jeremy Conrad seems to believe Loki could come back and has hinted he will on several occasions. For those who don’t know who this man is, he’s a journalist and the founder of MCU Cosmic and he has proven himself to be a quite reliable source when it comes to information regarding the MCU. This is what he said on the matter at hand:

Then, he shared the link to a brief article about the possibility of Loki being brought back to life through time travel. You can read it here. 

Two months later, this was Jeremy Conrad’s response when someone suggested Tom Hiddleston should be the next James Bond:

He basically hinted that Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is not over yet though when some users asked him to elaborate he didn’t answer. We all know that Avengers 4 is in post-production by now and this movie definitely won’t keep Tom busy so we can assume Jeremy Conrad is referring to the possibility of Loki being in other MCU movies yet to be announced.

Many of you may not know this but some weeks ago a man who claimed to have worked at Tom Hiddleston’s house tweeted that Tom has signed up for 4 more Marvel movies:

We should take this with a grain of salt but I personally think he might be telling the truth. Though I’ve chosen to hide his username because of the negative response he got for this tweet, this is not just an anonymous person hiding behind a computer screen, but someone who has personal information on his twitter profile, such as pictures, location, occupation (he is indeed a plumber and works in the UK) and he deleted the tweet once it started to gain some attention. He said he only wanted to share the good news but regretted tweeting about it because of the way Loki fans had reacted (some were calling him a liar). However, he insisted that he wasn’t lying and that we would see Loki in more movies. To be honest, I was really skeptical about this whole plumber thing at first but a few days after this, Jeremy Conrad insinuated that Tom Hiddleston won’t be James Bond because that would be incompatible with his role as Loki, so, even though 4 more films sound too good to be true, I think something might be going on with Tom’s contract.

At this point, it seems there is more evidence of Loki coming back than being permanently dead but, of course, nothing is confirmed yet. I’ve made a list of links just in case you want to read more theories about Loki’s death:

Reasons why Loki is alive

More reasons why Loki is alive 

Ego Stone theory 

Loki’s left hand theory

Undying fidelity theory 

The sun will shine on us again

You will never be a god