Fandom Repository.

they are very pretty.

Did you all ever study dominant vs. recessive genes in school?  Ever see a chart that looks like this?

'B' is brown eyes, 'b' is blue eyes, and 'G' is green eyes.  To oversimplify a bit, we each inherit two "letters" (called an "allele") for each gene, one from each parent.  'B' is dominant, and 'b' is recessive; meaning that the brown-eyed gene will (nearly) always express itself over the blue-eyed gene.  Brown-eyed people can be ‘BB’ or ‘Bb’.  To get blue eyes, you must receive a 'b' from both parents.

Now let's talk about 'G'.  Green is dominant, not recessive.  Blue is the only recessive allele.  Which means that green eyes and blue eyes arise from very different genetic expressions.

The point I'm making here is that green is genetically, scientifically, its own eye color, distinct from blue; not grouped in with it.  There is no "sometimes green and sometimes blue".  It's either/or.

There are only four official eye colors: brown, blue, green, and hazel.  If you think your eye color falls somewhere in the middle of these and you choose to give it a different name (like gray, violet, amber, black, blue-green, etc.), you can do that (and many do); but you are making it up.  You still have one of these four eye colors.

Brown eyes get their color from melanin, the same pigment that colors our skin.  Blue eyes, by contrast, have no pigment in them at all; blue, brown, or otherwise.  Technically you could even say that blue eyes are clear, or colorless.  Blue eyes get their color the same way water and the sky get their blue color: They absorb and scatter light in such a way that more blue light reflects back out.

Unlike blue eyes, green and hazel eyes contain low levels of melanin, resulting in a light brown pigment.  The way this pigment interacts with blue light is what makes the eye appear green.  Hazel eyes have more pigment than green but less than brown, and thus appear as either a light brown or combination of brown and green (never blue).  Different parts of the iris can have different amounts of pigment.  This accounts for the wide variation of color in our eyes.

Although genetically dominant, naturally green eyes (my personal fave, by the way) are extraordinarily rare.  Due to their lower level of melanin, green eyes can also fluctuate in shade depending on lighting, the way blue eyes do; but they will always be green, because they contain pigment.  So if you think your eyes look gray, you have blue eyes.  If you think your eyes change from blue to green depending on lighting, you have blue eyes.  If your eyes ever look anything but green or brown, you have blue eyes.

I watch a lot of TV. Probably too much. And I’ve seen characters beaten to their knees before, sometimes even with collars. And yeah, there’s usually someone standing over them, and it’s been a woman sometimes. The kind of scene we got in episode 5 of Loki is not new ground.

But here’s the thing. In EVERY OTHER SCENE I can remember like this, the person kneeling is the hero. They’ve been brought down, fully humbled before the sneering villain, and in a few minutes something will happen to get them back on their feet again. It’s usually a tense moment, a “what if they break?” that makes you want the hero to win. You aren’t rooting for, or even liking in some cases, the person standing. You’re cheering for the person on their knees.

This doesn’t seem to be the case with the Loki show. Yes, the viewers may be rooting for Loki, but there’s no hatred for Sif there. She’s not proved herself to be a cold, heartless villain, ruthlessly pounding the hero until all he can do is kneel at her feet.

Except…she did kind of do that. But it isn’t treated as something bad. It’s treated more as something Loki deserved, in my opinion. The show wants us to feel like he deserved to get repeatedly beaten up and told horrible things, just for cutting off a lock of Sif’s hair. I’ll grant, it’s peanuts compared to what happened to him in the mythology. But it’s still bad. Especially since they had him acknowledge it, repeat her cruel words back. They’re playing it off as if Loki is still the villain by himself, and is only good because of other people- Mobius, mostly, but Sif is part of that.

That’s not the way Loki’s character is. In the comics particularly, his biggest arcs are always about reinventing the labels given to him, changing “villain” into something good, something he can use, and doing it by himself. Yes, there’s outside influence, but ultimately Loki is the one who decided to change.

The show is not letting him do that. The show is portraying him as a stubborn jackass who refuses to change until other people show him the light- either with psychological torture presented as therapy, or with beating him up a bunch of times until he gives in. The show and its characters are forcing Loki to become good- they aren’t showing him doing it by himself. He is not becoming one of the good guys, he’s being essentially enslaved by them, and the show is passing it off as somehow all that good influence finally rubbed off on Loki’s cold, villainous heart. That’s why him betraying Mobius was shown as so bad even though Loki barely knew him and had been psychologically tortured by him- Mobius is written as a character who can choose to be good, and Loki is written as a character who must be forced to be good.

And something about an entire show revolving around an independent character being treated as a villain, literally enslaved by the “good guys” (back when the show still wanted us to think the TVA weren’t shady as all hell), beaten to his knees with a collar around his neck until he accepts that he deserves to be alone because he isn’t “good” like everybody else…that doesn’t go down right for me.

The TVA being presented in not just a neutral but often reliable light is something I thought would change once Loki literally called out their propaganda and Sylvie called them fascists, but, for some reason the authoritarian genocidalists are not being presented as a bad thing and it irks me too.

It’s especially weird because of the way what Loki claims to have wanted by making choices for people and what Mobius claims the TVA do ARE THE EXACT SAME THINGS, except Loki, until the show, hadn’t done that of his own volition and was being tortured during the invasion and is treated terribly for something he didn’t even succeed in doing, while the TVA successfully erase events on a mass scale but are presented as having a higher (or at best, - equal) moral ground.

The exact same thing was done in Ragnarok where Loki’s “turning point” from a tricksy villainous scoundrel happened because Thor left him frying on the ground and gave him a pep talk filled with lies and general slander about how he could be better - and people see that as good because Thor is framed as a hero, and it’s because instead of accepting Loki is a complex character they take what the narrative tells at face value and that is that Loki fights the protagonist(s) so he’s bad.

I personally don’t like the narrative pushing a character that is canonically an abuse victim and attempted suicide and was tortured right after as someone who needs fixing because he’s lusting for power and needs it to gain a sense of control during a retcon which is occurring for the sake of calling him a complete bad guy who needs to change (probably because no actual original character development could be thought of?) after he was just confirmed as queer and colloquially (i assume) called a narcissist because of twisted love.

That he deserves to be alone was presented neutrally as a joke even as he was repeatedly getting beaten to the ground, and then both people he could call friends were removed from his immediate vicinity right after.

Loki isn’t being presented as a character that has done a huge mix of good and bad in the movies, he’s being presented as an oft incompetent idiot that deserves what he gets because he shouldn’t have run away from captors, or he cut Sif’s hair, or he killed his mother, or he dared to think he had any importance or could do something good, because the truth is he’s an evil lying scourge.

“But maybe,” Mobius says, “Maybe he wants to mix it up. Sometimes you get tired of playing the same part. Is that possible? He can change?” And everyone’s already forgotten that moments before the mission Mobius said to Loki’s face that the TVA has pruned a lot of Loki variants because he’s so nice! look! he has hope in him when no one else does! It’s also easy to forget the “and hey, if it doesn’t work, I’ll delete him myself,” right after because the guy was smiling through it and the scene is followed by Loki really badly trying to explain the logic of being a trickster who everyone knows is a trickster.

A lot of people payed more attention in Ragnarok than to the other Thor movies so it’s not a new retcon and people seem fine with the extremely strange take that ‘loki is bad but he can do good sometimes,’ because the character is more animated and acts foolish and that’s generally more fun for comedy, which is fair for people to prefer imo, people find different things entertaining.

But I do solidly hope the show doesn’t go that way though and takes a side with Loki on the narrative stance eventually because I’ve seen a lot of people who just. miss that the TVA’s concept is bad. And those who think they’re “reforming” Loki. As if the guy needs anything but a break at this point lmao he only got away from Thanos like 2 days ago please just let him rest for a bit he’s a fail villain and it’s cringe to have your supposed 1st open queer character get beaten to a pulp by Sif and then put wack sexualizing shots for it too :/

it’s like the show itself is trying to sell the angle of “Loki is a villain” and I’m a clown who is still wanting that to be intentional because if it is? It could be amazing and playing with how different parties are framed would be s p e c t a cu l ar and could encourage people to reassess the hero coding in other movies including ones Loki was previously in - but we’re reaching the last two episodes and I don’t feel like that’ll happen.

pretty much the only way I could see it being kind of okay is if a) it’s a Loki who was so broken by Thanos that he went full villain, so it’s still explicitly coming from a place of trauma (and therefore the resolution is more focused on self-compassion like AoA ultimately was than in just trying to defeat him) or b) he had reasonably good motivations for it originally, although I have no idea what those might be.

what you pointed out does make me feel a bit better about them not going that route, though, mostly because I felt like episode 4 did have at least one significant payoff for something that major portions of fandom were yelling about all along while more casual viewers weren’t picking up on it: namely, the clearly authoritarian TVA being…you know…bad. I mean I certainly saw some people on Tumblr going “well duh, they’re obviously evil, why would the creators make a soul-crushing bureaucracy with propaganda like that if they didn’t also intend the organization to be bad” but I still think it was completely reasonable to worry that the creators didn’t realize, given that general viewers (and less-casual-but-not-fannish reviewers who…really should’ve known better) all seemed to be going “okay cool they’re time cops and they don’t like Loki, obviously they are Good Guys”, and a lot of the interviews also seemed to support the assumption that they were basically the good guys doing something necessary, and Marvel doesn’t have the best track record on this type of thing (see: nobody in canon pointing out the most important reasons the Sokovia Accords were a bad idea, nobody in canon giving actual reasons for why Thanos’s plan was evil bullshit rather than maybe kind of a bad thing with some potentially good consequences, all the other totally unnecessary unfortunate implications from everything Thanos did in IW actually, Karli in FatWS somewhat randomly killing people because she had to be Bad and her actual goals were so blatantly good, etc.). and even though it was really really clear to a lot of us from the jump that the TVA’s goals and methods were both Not Good, and we got more evidence for that throughout the first 3 episodes, episode 4 was the one where it became inescapably obvious, including having Mobius explicitly tell Loki, “You were right about the TVA from the beginning.”

so…the showrunners knew what they were doing with the TVA even if general audiences inexplicably didn’t pick up on it, is what I’m saying, which would make it even more weird to do something with Loki that would so clearly contradict something the show itself has gone out of its way to establish, which makes me think they aren’t going to do that.

on the other hand, this post makes some good points about why the showrunners, at least, might consider it to be a reasonable approach to take, which is what has me worried because, yeah, I can see it even if it’s also contradictory.

on the other other hand, a Loki ficwriter I follow on Twitter (I don’t think they have a Tumblr) wrote a thread a few days ago proposing the same general theory but coming at it from an angle that actually…makes me hate it a whole lot less? for ease of reading, I’ll just paste all the relevant parts in here:

Okay, so I have a theory based on what we’ve seen so far and I don’t care whether it will pan out because I like it too much. … My presumption is that the Sylvie/Loki is more about general self-love than about a usual romantic relationship, just so you know. …[and] I see all Lokis as genderfluid no matter what gender they currently present. Argue with a wall. …

So, there are several things about the series that together form, narratively speaking, an interesting picture: 1. In the first episode, it is established that Loki’s role on the sacred tl is… not very enviable and one that paints them in a very negative light. 2. In the second episode, Sylvie claims that “this is not about you” (which narratively tells me that this IS about Loki and seriously, the series is literally named after the character) 3. In ep3 and 4, we learn that Sylvie might have been more accepted and happy than Loki, thus possibly more self-accepting (and thus not acceptable for the TVA?). Maybe even the fact that she’s presenting female made her a variant 4. Sylvie and Loki caring for each other caused a catastrophic nexus event that could destroy the TVA. Now THAT’s interesting, isn’t it? And of course, you could say that despite all the queerbaiting, Marvel in the end wants to save the world with a het couple again, blahblah, except I don’t really think that’s it this time. 1. they can’t be het if they’re not cis 2. their love is transgressive in any case – Mobius even says so (and the twitter timeline (haha) certainly says so - “selfcest” and all that). 5. The scene with Sif drove home that point again - Loki being alone, deserving to be alone, hating himself in truth etc. Mobius repeats the theme by posing him the question “Do you think you deserve to be alone?” And he thinks that the answer to that is decisive. Yay, it’s about Loki’s self-hate again. 6. Well, and then we get to the villain who hides behind puppets. Who, now who might that be? Hehe. Who else?

This might be a major spoiler if my theory pans out but it would fit the current Marvel story OH so well. Remember that Loki rune symbol for the o in Loki they use? Doesn’t it kinda look similar to the hourglass symbol we see in the chamber of the timekeepers? A lot so? EXACTLY!

But why would a literal god of chaos build something like a sacred timeline, you ask? Well, what do we know about the Loki who goes down the violent path? They’re scared and they are isolated and they absolutely LOATHE themselves. They’re definitely their own worst enemy. Wouldn’t it be in-character for such a Loki to ensure a timeline where they meet an undignified, pathetic, lonesome end? A Loki so consumed by self-hate they prune all “better” versions of themselves?

It would integrate well into the Marvel phase of a. creating plot and “villains” out of trauma b. making the major plot arc about accepting yourself and dealing with trauma And it would be a beautiful connection to the very important comic Loki story arc Agent of Asgard that is basically exactly that: Traumatised King Loki attempts to traumatise young Loki into becoming themselves.

The solution there is to shed the need for outside validation (ego death) and to accept and love oneself fully (they hug and kiss king Loki on the forehead). By that, AoA-Loki escapes their own “sacred timeline” and makes space for something new, the god(dess) of stories.

Narratively, it would be a wonderful character development arc - Loki in the past was always held back by their self-hate and could, at the end of season 1, be ready to begin unfolding their true potential (as promised by Mobius in ep4). Narratively, it would tie the story together nicely, telling us why the whole series was called Loki to begin with, and why despite/because of Sylvie’s words, it definitely IS about Loki. Everything about it is. From the beginning to the end.

so yeah, I would still very much prefer for the Big Bad to be pretty much anyone except Loki, and if it really has to be Loki, for it to be one of the Lokis played by somebody else (I was thinking Richard E. Grant as King Loki but it uh…sure doesn’t seem that way after episode 4). but if they took this approach, where President Loki (probably) is behind all of this for the very simple reason that he hates all versions of himself that much, then…it could work. done well, I wouldn’t hate it. it would still be rooted in empathy/sympathy for Loki’s pain, which for me is the most important thing for the show to get right, and it could even be connected to Thanos-related trauma, with a Loki who just really internalized this message from a few different sources.

now, again, I would prefer…something else. I’m not actually sure how they would do something else, because if we haven’t met the Big Bad yet, it doesn’t really seem like there’s time to introduce a brand-new one. I guess that still leaves the option of like…well, something sort of like the first Avengers movie, really, where Loki and Sylvie take down the power structure of the TVA without ever finding out who or what, exactly, is behind it, and that question ends up being kicked down the road to Dr. Strange 2 and/or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (where Kang is actually slated to appear), although that seems…somewhat less likely, given that unlike in Avengers, the characters already know somebody else is pulling the strings, and as I understand it WandaVision and FatWS set a precedent of being pretty self-contained. I suppose potentially you could also do something a bit more like WandaVision, where Loki’s pain and self-hate just kinda…started all this without his conscious direction and it quickly spread beyond his control, but that would probably be harder to pull off in this context.

lol I don’t think so. I mean. he’s an actor. he’s played lots of roles and while I'm sure the costume and makeup and hair and stuff help him with his process, if he couldn’t play characters that had his same hair or looked like him etc he’d be in trouble. plus I don’t know how anyone could make lines like “who actually believes this crap?” feel in-character for loki because it’s simply not something he would say. (not that that moment is the only issue. the whole way loki is framed in the show feels off and I don’t think that’s on any one person bc a production has lots of people involved in it). 

Now, what is characterization? I would say it’s how a character reacts or shows his reaction to certain triggers (medically speaking, meaning things that invoke a reaction, not limited to upsetting ‘triggers’). There is a whole bunch of possible triggers you can sort by the reaction they invoke.

1) sudden appearance of an enemy that doesn’t act as Loki expected: for comparison at first Loki’s reaction to stark appearing in his tower and shedding the iron man armor (the Avengers)

Now, his reaction to the approaching Mongolians (episode 1: glorious purpose). At first, he simply looks skeptical. For me, this is in accordance with his former characterization. He has been skeptical before.

For comparison Loki from Thor 1:

But then he does this:

The only former instances of Loki running I could think of are in Thor Ragnarok* when he fetches Surtur's crown and in Thor 1 when the whole group flees from the Jotnar on Jotunheim. Both are events that rectify a little haste. Unarmed mortals looking spooked are not.

For comparison Loki reacting to the Hulk's appearance in Avengers, a situation where appearing strong was quite important for him.

Yelling? Yes. Aggressive gestures? Yes! Trying to stand upon Starks bar behind him to appear bigger? No! Because it’s silly and won’t help. That’s why.

In contrast, his reaction to Hunter B15 and her minutemen is again much more in control, even when the ‘I beg your pardon’ only reminds of Hela’s first appearance in Thor Ragnarok.

2) Loki being a little shit: despite his title there haven’t been so many instances where Loki actually showed mischievous behavior in the first three films. But I believe these are acceptable examples so far:

So what is this?

I wish there wasn’t a gif limit so I could add another one of Loki running behind Mobius from where both of them try to manipulate the other (episode 2), but my criticism would be all the same: those movements are hectic and overly expressive. That’s the opposite of what we know from Loki. He was always controlled and did move gracefully. Like a feline, ready to strike. They could have made him free the goats in a more serious way. Or open the salt instead of shaking it like mad. He could have looked Mobius straight in the eye and pour the whole salt into that salad, smiling like a shark. I would have loved that.

The Loki fans who loathed Gagnarok did it for two reasons: the changed visual style and the denigration of Loki's character in order to elevate others. I complained about both, but I was always going to be willing to overlook the first, if the second weren't there.

And well, deal-breaker puts it in such a binary system of ‘yes’ and ‘no’. I prefer a greyscale. To me it's more like ordering a hot chocolate on a restaurant you aren't familiar with. It can be too sweet, too bitter, too watery, or just perfect (and sometimes even better than expected). Those moments of Loki acting differently rip me from the fictional world the series tries to pull me in. Which severely diminishes my enjoyment. But not to the point of zero.

There are many other scenes where he feels very much like the ‘old’ loki to me. There are also many scenes which feel only slightly off to me, but those I can overlook, just like you. The arc as far as it has been revealed feels appropriate to me. A lot like TDW, actually, which I liked very much. But in regard of his methods I must say, I don't agree entirely. Yes, there are similarities. Manipulation is certainly his forte and he uses it in the series just as much as he did in Thor 1.

But then there is this. I can't imagine him doing such a futile escape attempt in TDW or Avengers:

Perhaps that is the changed style. But I can't help to feel like it is still denigrating, even though not as blatantly as in Gagnarok. The slow-motion punch made me cringe so hard, I tell you. I am so happy for you it didn't affect you like that! I wish i could say the same.

Anyway, for me it's more like pepperoni. I can try to take the parts of I dislike but the taste will have soaked through to all the parts around it. So, i have to eat everything or ditch it completely. Only in the second watch I might be able to skip the parts I dislike, but I will always remember them. *sigh*

To the subtext point of ‘why discuss it’?

Sharing happiness about something is a great experience and many people who love the show very much are relishing in it. I am happy for those! (Perhaps even a bit envious.) it's very good for the mental health, as well!

Yet, sharing the feeling of being disappointed is IMO even more important for the mental health. People who liked the show are already at a good place, but people who are disappointed are at that point sad, angry and feeling often isolated. Sharing the feelings can reduce the feeling of isolation and thereby the negative effects. It gives validation. It's not about getting worked up, it's about getting support. Also, for those of us that write themselves, the discussion helps to understand which parts annoyed us. I put a lot of thoughts I learned from the meta discussions in my fanfics and I am totally hyped when reading similar takes in other people's fanfics. So it's also about improving oneself. :)

Thor's arrogance in the first Thor film is literally one of the things Loki is criticising and using as an argument why Thor should not be king.

Actually, I'd even go as far as to say that Avengers 2012 is where Loki is supposed to be out of character. Because he's under the influence of the mind stone. But the "I am god, you dull creature" line, following the Hulk flinging him around seems to be the only thing everyone remembers and thinks of as extremely funny and defining for Loki's character.

Yeah same! Loki wasn't arrogant. He was insecure and resentful. He's meant to be a contrast to Thor. Thor is already brash and arrogant so narratively having Loki be the same way wouldn't work. That's why the beginning of Thor 2011 shows how Thor is loud whereas Loki is silent. Thor is overconfident and impulsive while Loki is more cautious and thoughtful etc. The show seems to have reversed that.

Maybe the writers watched that clip of Tom auditioning as Thor and got confused??? Loki's flaw was never arrogance. That was Thor. Thor 2011 is all about that. Then again, Mike Waldron said the show will answer questions like "why is loki the way he is" and "why does he do the things he does" which were already answered in Thor 2011, which was his origin story. So maybe they fell asleep during that movie.

He killed several dark dwarves. Alone. With knife. Then killed Thor’s one guy whom Thor could not beat with a magic hammer and saved Thor’s and Jane’s ass. And then bitches say Thor is stronger because muscles. Yawning.

Plus. This. Whoever wrote it - thank you.

And I also found this on pinterest ⬇️⬇️

^^ All of the above is very accurate. The skill with which Loki fights, using his daggers, is no fucking joke. If you watch the clip from TDW, the entire sequence of Loki taking down those elves is about seven seconds. Let me repeat that: it takes Loki roughly seven seconds and a single dagger to overpower and kill, what, six Dark Elves? The sequence doesn’t skip any time or speed up Loki’s actions, either. Seven seconds. 

So, yeah, it’s not the knives. It’s the fact that, in the former complaint (”being reduced to knives”), it’s frustrating that Loki never gets to show his additional skills that we all know he has and, as a result of never seeing those skills, we don’t get to see how powerful Loki actually is, especially compared to other characters, because we recognize that if Loki is this deadly with a dagger, what can he do with his whole arsenal of magic and super strength? How are people going to sit there and claim characters like Wanda and Strange and even Thor are “the most powerful in the MCU” when Loki has never been given the narrative chance to accurately be compared to them? 

Which segues into the “butter knife” thing - again, it has nothing to do with the dagger. It’s the fact that Loki takes these elves down in seven seconds, is a skilled fighter, is deadly and dangerous, and yet he falls back on nothing but a single (relatively small) dagger and he doesn’t even use it well. He goes for Thanos’s neck but even before Thanos stopped him, Loki could barely even reach high enough to do any real harm. Like: 

He thrusts the knife up with one hand. Thanos is stopping him, but Loki’s arm is fully out-stretched and the tip of the blade just barely reaches Thanos’s chin. There was no finesse or strength behind Loki’s action; this move showed no real skill and certainly not the level of skill we know Loki has. So what the fuck was he expecting to accomplish here? No one’s ever been able to explain it to me in a way that makes sense. 

Furthermore, because Loki has never been shown using more than knives to fight with, a good majority of people who watched Infinity War and are not otherwise familiar with Loki (probably) came away from that scene thinking that Loki was weak and defenseless and that’s why he got squashed like a bug. 

And because Loki has never been shown using more than knives to fight with, a good majority of Loki fans who know better (probably) came away from that scene furious that Loki was de-powered specifically so Thanos could squash him like a bug. The Russos needed to prop Thanos up and where better to plant a pedestal than on top of Loki’s corpse? 

The intent of the writers of the Thor movies was to write Frigga as a good mother so that’s how her scenes are portrayed. Unfortunately they didn’t succeed. In universe Frigga was complicit in lying to Loki about his heritage and in raising him (and Thor) to have violently xenophobic attitudes about the Jotnar even though she knew Loki was one. Given that she didn’t have a problem with this or try to correct those attitudes, she probably shared them. It was also almost certainly she who told them stories as children about the monstrous frost giant. Furthermore, in every discussion where Loki expresses anger or hurt about the situation she discourages him from having those feelings and defends Odin.

Your last line demonstrates exactly why I feel that the messaging in the show is extremely harmful. The show frames Loki as a villain and retcons his backstory in a way that makes him seem much more straightforwardly evil than he was and promotes abuse apologism and victim blaming. It’s interesting that you fixate here on Loki being brutal and manipulative, rather than on the TVA being brutal and manipulative. The reason you are doing that is that is how the show presents things. The show focus on “evil and villainous Loki” being justly “confronted” with his flaws by the TVA and Mobius who are presented as moral authorities.

However actually even if Loki was as simplistic a villain as the show presents him as, the TVA are far worse. They are a violent authoritarian policing organization that as a matter of procedure commit acts of genocide (obliterating whole timelines as well as individual people because they belong to a class the TVA deems unworthy of life - Variants), torture, enslavement, unlawful surveillance, trial without due process, and police brutality. They are far, far more evil than even the retconned version of Loki the show presents us with could be. They are not the moral authorities. Mobius berating Loki until he breaks down by telling him that he is inherently monstrous (the reason he attempted suicide in Thor 2011) is not justified or correct. The villain in that scene isn’t Loki, it’s Mobius. But the show doesn’t present it that way. And so you’re echoing that view. This is why the framing of the show is deeply problematic and harmful.

Reminder that Frigga’s “adoration” of Loki included:

lying to him his entire life

perpetuating the “Jötnar are monsters” narrative with the full awareness that he was one of them

never once telling him there’s nothing wrong with being Jötun

immediately absolving herself of any responsibility for the lie once the truth comes out (”I told him to be honest with you from the beginning”)

victim-blaming and shaming Loki for his perfectly justified feelings of anger and betrayal following the truth coming out (”You are our son and we your family. You must know that.”; ”There’s always a purpose to everything your father does”)

either ignoring or completely missing the fact that he’s barely hanging onto his sanity, failing to comfort him either verbally or with gestures of connection such as a hug or a hand squeeze, etc

thrusting upon him the additional burden of ruling a realm at war with the very peoples he’s just learned he secretly belongs to, without providing him with even minimal support (emotional or otherwise) and complete with an explicit verbal command to “make [his] father proud” (something he’s spent his entire life desperately trying to do, so hey, no pressure)

apparently just shrugging her shoulders and going, “meh, they’ll be fine” after seeing one son fucking blast another son through a wall what the actual fuck frigga

never once showing concern for Loki’s well-being or asking (at least that we’re aware of) where he’d been, what happened to him, why he’d begun acting so erratic, anything of the sort—opting instead to simply warn him not to “make this worse”

attempting to purchase his cooperation with gifts and comfort items rather than listening to his complaints or offering apologies/validation, then trying to guilt-trip him when it doesn’t work (”the books I sent, do they not interest you?”; “I’ve done everything in my power to make you comfortable”)

criticizing him for escaping into fantasies (pretty much the only control he still has over his environment, at this point) after he’s been sentenced to a lifetime in solitary confinement rather than addressing the substance of said fantasies and assuring him he doesn’t need to be Thor in order to have value

gaslighting him with that “a true king admits his faults” crap while never once acknowledging the mistakes Odin (a man who has probably never admitted to being wrong about anything) has made (once again, Odin gets the benefit of “having a purpose to everything he does”)

trying to emotionally blackmail him into accepting Odin as his father again (”then am I not your mother?”), then acting hurt when he rightly rejects her blatant attempt at manipulation

dropping Loki like a hot potato (again) without so much as a goodbye as soon as Thor returns home from Vanaheim

….very possible I’m forgetting some things; I can only hold so much bullshit in my conscious brain at any given time

but also lmao

apparently just shrugging her shoulders and going, “meh, they’ll be fine” after seeing one son fucking blast another son through a wall what the actual fuck frigga

this such a good point lolol. I mean obviously I think out-fo-universe it’s bc the MCU isn’t that good at writing women so they just sort of wanted to have her there as a good maternal figure (oops! they failed at that!) and then get her out of the way when plot things started happening but from an in-universe perspective this wild lol. Frigga has no clue what’s going on. (actually neither does thor). Thor shows up. he and look have their dramatic confrontation and then battle their way out of the room and Frigga’s just like ‘ok. time to go about my day as usual I guess. definitely not something I need to find out more about’

apparently just shrugging her shoulders and going, “meh, they’ll be fine” after seeing one son fucking blast another son through a wall what the actual fuck frigga

Frigga’s just like ‘ok. time to go about my day as usual I guess. definitely not something I need to find out more about’

I’m sorry, I’m sitting here cracking the fuck up bc of all the things Frigga is guilty of, this one shouldn’t be on the list; I, personally, like to imagine that Thor and Loki were such hellions growing up together and got into so much nonsense and chaos that one son blasting the other through a wall didn’t even register on Frigga’s “oh shit” meter. More like, *Loki blasts Thor through the wall, runs after him* *explosions in the distance* “Ah, things are getting back to normal.”

Out of time and on the run – Loki must #QuestionEverything

LOKI (2021-) | Glorious Purpose 1.01

Hiya everyone. I’m hoping this post makes its way through the Loki fandom.

I know right now we’re in kind of a devisive place, what with people’s extremely mixed opinions on the new Loki series. However, if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that we love our charming trickster.

We’re a pretty diverse group. The MCU is such a global phenomenon that we have people from all over the world. Now, of course many of us have Tumblr, or AO3, or some type of social media where we connect, but we don’t have an easy way to actually see each other.

What if we did?

I’m guessing most of you are familiar with conventions, or “cons”. For any of you who aren’t, they’re large events, typically centered around fandom but there are some non-fandom ones too (like furry cons). There are games, contests, and other activities. There will be panels where Big Name Fans, cosplayers, content creators, etc. will speak. Some larger cons even attract the actual writers and actors.

The problem with these is that they’re pretty inaccessible. They often require travel and have expensive tickets. For people in countries with smaller fandom bases, it can be extremely hard if not impossible to go to cons.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve all learned a whole lot about doing things virtually. We have Zoom, and Google Meets, and a whole lot of virtual meeting tools.

What if we held a Virtual Loki Convention? Not only would it be completely safe in terms of transmitting COVID, but people from all over could attend. We could gush about our meta analysis, headcanons and theories, promote people’s art, teach each other about creating various forms of content, and have friendly discourse. Maybe we could even have watch parties or something.

Anyways, this is a fairly new idea (as in I came up with it this morning and proceeded to binge-research), but if we did this it would be amazing!

Idk. Give me your thoughts.

My pitch for the show was kind of a big, crazy, fun time adventure,” says head writer Michael Waldron. “The TVA is just an entirely new world [with] a new cast of characters, and that’s what felt most exciting about the show: building a new corner of the MCU.”

Look at this! Not a word about Loki or his character or being excited to delve into his nuance or depth or feeling honored to write for him. Nope. What Waldron focuses on is how excited he is to introduce the TVA to the MCU. Once again we have someone in charge of Loki’s character who’s more interested in other characters and feels the need to knock Loki down in order to build other characters up instead of letting them all stand on their own strengths. 

I mean really? The exciting thing about the LOKI show is the TVA and the new characters? Not Loki? He doesn’t even get mentioned at all??! It’s exactly what I was afraid of based on the other promotional material. The trailers felt like they were focusing on Mobius and the TVA as the protagonists and villain coding Loki in his own series. The trailers also focus constantly on mocking and denigrating Loki and seem to take no interest in his character and have stripped him of his trademark wit and poise and turned him into the butt of every joke. 

The trailer is framed from Mobius’s perspective rather than Loki and ironically, given the cringe inducingly bad “talky talky” exchange, he gets more lines than Loki does. And it hardly feels like Loki is even in the trailers even when he’s technically on screen because he is written and framed with such little care that he doesn’t even feel like the same character. Even the posters are brown for the TVA not green for Loki. It felt like they were using Loki as a side character to get people to watch the TVA show. 

I hoped I was wrong. But the head writer himself has seemingly confirmed it. He isn’t excited about or interested in Loki’s character. He was excited about his own creations - an adaption of the TVA and the new characters that work there. That’s where his passion lies and where the focus of the show is. And based on the trailers, in order to make those characters seem cooler he’s seemingly trying to have them constantly get one over on Loki because he can’t write well enough to just actually make them good characters in their own right.

His pitch for the show was nothing Loki specific and he doesn’t care about Loki’s character. I should’ve known from the fact that they couldn’t even be bothered to get his hair length right even though it’s picking up right where Avengers left off and they literally could’ve just googled a screen shot to match it to. 

Well. I certainly hope to be proven wrong but I’m really disappointed. This quote just confirms all my concerns based on the trailers and other promotional materials. I’m so tired of the MCU disappointing me. They promised a show about Avengers/TDW Loki. That’s all I wanted. Instead they’re giving us some generic unfunny garbage instead. At that point just make a TVA show and give Loki his own show.

But, with that being said, it’s definitely concerning. Firstly, you’re handed a character with the degree of nuance, of depth, of unresolved trauma that Loki has and the thing you find most compelling is the opportunity to write a “big, crazy, fun time adventure”? Seriously? And then there’s the similarity to the Russos violently sidelining Loki in favour of showing how much better “their” Big Bad was and TW being so excited to make “[his] version of a Marvel film” regardless of character or plot consistency. Honestly, at this point, displaying genuine enthusiasm about working with Loki specifically is a litmus test for me because there’s been a very irritating recent trend of writers/directors wanting to make their mark on the MCU at his expense. And maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I get that same vibe off this quote. It’s one thing to be excited to build a new section of the universe with new characters. Of course, that would be a thrill for any writer, director, actor, etc. That’s a given. But it’s another matter for that to be your primary focus in a show that’s ostensibly supposed to be about an established character, because then your intentions for those new characters are most likely going to overshadow your commitment to the established one(s), who you predictably feel less of a sense of ownership over. This maybe wouldn’t be quite so alarming if every trailer so far didn’t already feel like it were framing Mobius and the TVA as the protagonists rather than Loki. But they have felt that way and this just feels like a confirmation that we’ve been right to think that.

One of the weird/interesting/annoying things about being involved in the Loki fandom is how often our treatment—both by Marvel and other fans—winds up mirroring Loki’s experiences in-universe. And to me, this feels like yet another extension of that. I would almost compare it to the experience of Loki feeling like an outsider his whole life and then having that ‘ah-ha!’ moment when he learns he’s actually Jötun. That moment of “oh, so I’m not crazy. I haven’t been imagining you treating me like a leper all my life. Good to know.”

When asked what he would do as Loki’s therapist, he said he would try to convince Loki that actually, he is loved by his family, and he would try to make Loki consider their perspective (implying that this has never occured to Loki himself). He would tell Loki “your father actually kept you alive” as a way of showing him he doesn’t need to feel so hurt. He has said almost as a refrain that “there is no Loki without Thor, and there is no Thor without Loki” (which fits together well with Mobius feeling like a kind of stand-in for Thor in terms of what his relationship is to Loki). When asked what he thinks Loki wants, he said that he doesn’t know, and Loki probably doesn’t know either, because: “He’s become so accustomed to occupying opposition. Whatever the status quo is, he’s opposed to it.” He’s talked about TR as a beautiful reconciliation between Thor and Loki. And when asked where he’d like Loki’s arc to go next (I think this was during press for TDW), he said the only thing he could think of was that it would be fun if Loki ran a nightclub in the 70’s.

People in this fandom often talk about how “Tom truly loves Loki more than any of us” and “Tom is Loki’s greatest defender”. That may be true from his perspective and that of many fans - both of which I respect, even though I find them harder and harder to understand. But if you look at what Tom Hiddleston has said about Loki over the years, the above interpretation of the trailers is consistent with what we might expect him to be happy with. Sure, he probably needs to just give lip service to whatever production he’s been part of as part of his obligations as an actor. But he really shows no signs of not meaning any of the above. Especially because a lot of it is from before the TR retcon, so he wouldn’t ‘need’ to say those things to support the narrative of the movies he was promoting. He’s been pretty consistent in expressing an understanding of Loki that the kind of show we’re fearing would fit right into.

The journey I’m undertaking as a fan right now is trying to reconcile that with being a fan of Tom Hiddleston. Because I can never be happy with it. I can never see it as a good or healthy approach to depicting a profoundly compassion-starved character. It makes me angry and sad. But I also don’t want it to make me a Loki anti or Tom Hiddleston anti the way I’ve turned into a Marvel anti over the course of TR, Infinity War and Endgame. In part because I’ve always known Tom Hiddleston as an actor who takes his characters really seriously and never half-asses them or deliberately screws them over. I know he pours his heart into his work and would never want to disrespect his fans or their experience. But it’s such a weird experience to deeply respect someone who’s also making something that feels very hurtful. And with which he has shown no signs of disagreeing.

I’ve noticed some of these red flags too over the months, but I’ve told myself not to make any conclusions before seeing the series. However, I think there is now enough information (from footage and interviews) to at least support some uncomfortable questions.

@everything-you-feel-is-real Your analysis of Tom’s position is painfully on point. As much as I love him, indications are that he may have lost track of Loki as much as those around him.

I’m afraid it’s possible that Tom may have made the mistake of following the Chris Odinson “acting” methodology: transforming the character into himself rather than transforming himself into the character.

This is tragic, because Tom’s a true artist of acting and filmmaking. He’s deeply talented; a refined and nuanced performer. Tom approaches his characters with profound respect and compassion. There are so few people who can so convincingly slip into an entirely different identity. I mean—in Tom’s original portrayal of Loki he stole major scenes from Anthony. Friggin. Hopkins. That Loki and this Loki from the series look nothing like each other.

There are countless “actors” who only play an idealized version of themselves, and succeed based on their personal magnetism (enhanced by all the clever tricks of filmmaking). They aren’t actors so much as movie stars.

Tom has always been an actor first. Why change now? Well, I’d guess the popular success of Ragnarok might have made a deep impression.

I’m not sure he’s lost track of Loki over the years, though, because some of these quotes are from the earliest movies, and I don’t remember him contradicting anything he’s said in the past. I think it’s more that he’s always held a view of Loki that isn’t violated by TR or any subsequent content.

The why of that is an interesting question that I’ve been trying to phrase an answer to for like two hours now without any luck. I have so many thoughts on it that they keep bumping into each other and falling over helplessly ^^; (I think I’ve written-then-immediately-deleted like 8 pages worth of confused meta by now)

As far as losing track of Loki, I think the problem is that he’s always held a mixed view of the character but the shallower(?) aspects have begun more and more to overshadow or outweigh his “defense” of him. The emphasis has become increasingly focused on Loki being fun and chaotic and charming (is that what I’m supposed to be seeing in these trailers? Because uh… I’m not) to the detriment of dealing with Loki’s trauma in a satisfying or meaningful way. And I think there’s a further issue in that Tom is excellent at exploring a character’s underlying psychology in order to give them more depth and nuance, but simultaneously, he’s kind of… well, dumb when it comes to the issue of mental health. I mean that with no disrespect, but as illustrated above, he’s said some very (I’m sure unintentionally) invalidating things about Loki’s struggles. He recognises that Loki’s “villainy” comes from a place of genuine pain, but he appears to have no practical understanding of how to resolve that pain. When I watched that “if I were Loki’s therapist” interview, all I could think was, “dear god, please do not ever let this man be anyone’s therapist.” Again, I have enormous respect for Tom. I’m not judging him. This is just not an area where he excels.

I remember when I first saw Tom’s acting as Loki and then saw him in interviews. I was so struck by how, by his own admission, he hadn’t been through anything like what Loki went through, and yet he portrayed it flawlessly. I had never seen that before and haven’t seen it since, to my knowledge. Usually people who haven’t been through it can’t depict it accurately, and they certainly can’t talk about it as anything other than immaturity, malice, laziness, or some other accusation of inherent lowliness. It gave me such hope to think that if he could reach all the way across the human condition like that, maybe people in general could reach each other across such vast distances in real life, too. And us ‘Lokis’ wouldn’t have to huddle together in a corner and shut everyone else out to keep from getting well-meaningly (or not well-meaningly) invalidated every time we opened our mouths.

But I guess he never reached all the way into Loki, only some of the way. Which is still impressive, since he’s the only person from 'the other side’ that I know of who’s gotten that far. What I wouldn’t give for a chance to give him an hour of my personal tedtalk on Loki’s trauma and see what that did to his perspective on the character. To see whether it would fundamentally change his ideas of what makes sense for Loki’s arc, or if he would just respectfully disagree.