Sorry about the delay but I had to battle with the computer - my Netbook really doesn’t like Tumblr, no it doesn’t - after a few busy hours away from any computer at all. I see Asks have piled up in my absence.
Cool!—the Jotnar practicing ritual scarification. Perhaps Loki’s markings could also be lighter because he was taken as a baby, and thus was not subject to the enhancement that older Jotnar practice? (although I’m a fan of the mixed parentage theory)
You know I am in love with that theory. Of course, there’s the Marvel problem - they are never going to address the issue of Loki’s birth mother, because it would be too much work to think of a solution.
I thought I had stated my personal belief about those markings as ritual alterations to natural ridges. Perhaps some are added, while others can be augmented. If I haven’t, I have been an idiot.
I’d say it’s genetic, because I got the impression that he had more markings as an adult than as a baby, and that scars would deform with that extreme expansure of skin tissue/change in proportions between newborn and adult age.
You know, I had never noticed - one really wonders how, with all the hours I have spent staring at those images since the first movie - but the baby has smooth, round cheeks, whereas adult!Loki has those very thin lines on his skin… They look a little like the lines that form under the ice when it grows, actually.
Maybe it’s a combination of both? His lighter marks could indicate that they occur naturally (although Loki is a tricky one to use as a baseline for *anything*) and perhaps the darker markings on the bigger Jotun are indications of ritual scarification of those same natural lines?
We are many to share the thought ;)
And you raise a crucial point about the fact that Loki should never be used as a template for anything, unless we are being expressly told that he is contrary to… so that we may infer from it.
The ridges have to be natural to some extent, since he developed new ones while away from his planet of origin, and - whatever the means and the meaning of it - spending more than a millennium inside an Aesir skin.
However, we have many reasons to assume that the Jotuns practice body modification to make their markings more visible. Obviously, the lines enhanced are the bigger ones, and it is clear enough that the additional scarification plays on the symmetry. They have decorative purposes, even with social significance.
Also, markings might change naturally depending on age - or possibly even other factors such as social status, if you start thinking about alien biology.
I agree that this a possibility - that the markings change over time - and I had considered it, actually, but it tends to annoy me because I have to wonder why the lines come and go under the skin, and why do his eye change colour, and what colour is his blood anyway, and how deep is the change of his DNA, and why do people keep portraying him with horns when Jotuns don’t have any, and why do they think he can turn blue at will, and how was he able to turn back in the first place, and…
I have a theory regarding the markings actually. In my mind, it all depends on bloodline. So if you were of a certain family with deeper markings, you are therefore more likely to have them. Perhaps they also symbolise class? So the high class Jotuns were all born with deeper markings than lower class ones. If this theory is to be believed, then Laufey either married or had a lower class mistress, thus Loki’s skin.
Interesting theory! Loki’s markings are very different from his father’s but he could have inherited them from his biological mother, of course - if the Jotuns have two genders or more. I strongly doubt that they are actually intersex because I don’t believe the screenwriters would even had considered that hypothesis, but it’s a good theory I like to see developed in fanfiction. Plus, it’s terribly practical to avoid mentioning Loki’s birth mother. Ah, fandom and its inexorable dread of femininity.
The problem with class-related markings is that they would mean one thing: that the Jötnar are born with determined roles in society, like for social insects. In those species, the “lower classes” are sterile.
In the original script, where Laufey got to recognise his son - it was not the case in the filmed version, this was confirmed by K. Branagh - he calls him “the bastard son” and admits to having abandoned him. Even though the definitive scene - Loki going to Jötunheim once king, to strike a bargain with Laufey - is significantly different, there is no reason the motives behind Laufey’s gesture changed. Loki, to his biological father, is a “bastard”. Food for thought, hmm?
Here is the post about Jotun markings and their meaning. Thus far it is the most in-depth one around and in our rp group we consider it to be canon:
I have always liked that drawing and its explanation, and I understand why you would refer to it for RP or fanfiction.
However, from a worldbuilding perspective, it’s practically useless, being based on no real evidence. These markings are Laufey’s.
We know nothing of Loki’s markings bar his face and his hands; and you will notice that the drawing did not reproduce all the ridges, such as the ones on his neck, or those we saw on the baby’s chest:
Also, there is the little problem of having a Jotun with outer ear, hair, flat teeth, and “human”-looking bone structure, in addition to the size thing. And no, you won’t have me believe that dwarf-Jotuns happen to look exactly like perfectly-proportioned Asgardians.
Laufey’s facial markings in the film are darker than skin colour, IIRC. They could be using some kind of body paint to make their markings more obvious.
Well, in all honesty, I didn’t believe they were… they are terribly difficult to see, when everything is blue and dark and RHAAA!
You know what? I am still incapable of asserting anything for sure. In any case, I like the body paint hypothesis very much, but it would need to be at least semi-permanent: can you picture old king Laufey amorously applying full-body make-up each morning?
No, fandom, you don’t answer that.
