#exploring asgard

Extracted from here for reasons related to practicality.

Quotation 1

“I start in the film as Thor’s younger brother and I think in the manner of all younger brothers I have a greater sense of freedom. I’m not the oldest therefore the parental expectations aren’t as heavy, so it’s like a lot of younger children in sibling groups; I think Loki has a bit more freedom. He’s not going to be King. He knows that. And so he’s freer to… he has less responsibility on his shoulders so he’s freer to have a bit more fun. And I think like everybody at Marvel has been very clear and brilliant about coming into this that Loki just has… they’re both enormously gifted. Thor and Loki are a two-man team and they’re both going to run Asgard when Odin steps down, and Thor has an ability and a physicality and a presence—a physical presence that is… he’s the type of man you follow. You just do. In the same way they used to talk about all the leaders and the captains and the generals that came out of both World Wars that those captains and generals weren’t necessarily elected just in battles. There were certain men who were followed. You know, leaders were born and Thor is that guy. And Loki’s gifts are different in that he is sharper, he’s cleverer, he’s more interested in tactics and strategy. He’s capable of thinking ahead and he enjoys chaos. So he enjoys reacting to chaos and that affects how given that he’s the God of mischief. Mischief is essentially chaos. He likes stoking the fire of chaos and seeing what happens as a result.”

                 — Tom Hiddleston on Loki, 2011 interview by Collider during the production of the first Thor film.

Quotation 2

“Thor is the favoured son, and destined to be heir to the throne of Odin and that kind of rubs Loki the wrong way, but at the same time they’ve had a great experience growing up together. Odin has been a tough but good and fair father to both of them.”

                  — Kevin Feige, quoted in the Art of Thor official book.

Quotation 3

                        ODIN           Do you think he's ready?                         FRIGGA           He thinks he is. He has his          father's confidence.                         ODIN           He'll need his father's wisdom.                         FRIGGA           And his humility?           Odin reacts.          FRIGGA (CONT'D)           Thor won't be alone. Loki will be          at his side to give him counsel.          Have faith in your sons.  

                — Deleted scene from Thor, to be read in the original script.

“Thor and Loki are a two-man team and they’re both going to run Asgard when Odin steps down”

“Thor won’t be alone. Loki will be at his side to give him counsel.”

I don’t think it has been pointed out enough that Odin and Frigga had always intended to have both of their sons rule Asgard, and that Thor and Loki themselves have long been a rather efficient team. Here’s to hoping they’ll get the occasion to be one again. (Before one stabs the other and runs away with the silverware, of course.)

star-sought-light:

I agree with everything you say. I was also reminded of the scene where Frigga *gives* Loki the throne; clearly, she thought him capable of being king, even when Loki initially refused, and it does feel like a further piece of evidence that both were loved and both considered equally capable of rule. Although why Thor over Loki, when they admit Thor wasn't ready?

The last question was just a criticism of them, but I haven't enough characters to express that. It seemed to make sense with the original script that Odin meant for Loki to rule Jotunheim, but - without that scene - makes little sense, as they're picking the seeming less capable child to rule over the capable one.

Quotation 4

“It's been in the works for many years, right, since we finished Dark World. What has Loki been doing on that throne in guise of Odin? And we always liked the idea that he was doing a good job! He was doing a good, but shortsighted job. The trains were running on time, but he wasn't paying attention to anything else going on in the universe or in the realms.”

                — Kevin Feige, interviewed by CinemaBlend shortly before the release of Thor: Ragnarök.

We have often discussed between us the fact that Loki is much more like Odin than many, including himself, would like to think; something that Taika Waititi had Hela comment upon in Ragnarök, in fact: ‘You sound like him’. No matter their differences, Loki was very much Odin’s son. He inherited the sharp wit and calculating mind of both his adoptive parents, in reality, whereas Thor had his father’s hubris but his mother’s heart. On the other hand, Thor is clever, much cleverer than everyone usually give him credit for, while Loki is somewhat less of the strategical mastermind than too many people have decided he had to be... After all, Loki makes up a lot of it as he goes along, and he lacks self-perception to a ludicrous extent—he lacks wisdom, probably because he lacks the humility and empathy necessary for change, and wisdom requires the capacity for change, like Thor, on the contrary, demonstrated in learning from his mistakes.

I’m not entirely sure this was the entire reason for Odin and Frigga choosing Thor over Loki for occupying the throne of Asgard, though; I would say the main reason for this was, quite plainly, the reality of Loki’s birth first and foremost. Not that it make him unworthy, but it seems highly likely that his true parentage would have eventually caused some turmoil within the realm... This is not the only thing, either.

Thor isn’t only an Asgardian citizen nor even an Asgardian prince; he is of the line of Odin, the line of Borr and of Búri (the former appearing in the prologue of The Dark World, the latter cited in behind-the-scenes material as the king who had the oldest part of Asgard built) before them. He descends from the founders of Asgard, you see, and, like his father Odin and his older sister Hela, Thor derives most of his power from the very people of Asgard. There is much to speculate here, but it would be hard not to state right away that the kings of Asgard are almost one with their people, and that in order for Asgard to prosper, a king of the line of Búri must occupy the throne. Which is not to say that Loki or someone else couldn’t be king, only that he would probably lack in power and oversight somewhat.

Remember that Thor, prior to Ragnarök, had visions of Asgard’s impending doom, whereas Loki saw nothing—and when warned about them under Odin’s guise he dismissed them as ‘just a silly dream... signs of an overactive imagination’. The Odinforce was never cited in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but it is very tempting indeed to assume that Thor, has inherited more from his mighty father than a throne.

          FRIGGA (CONT'D)           Thor won't be alone. Loki will be          at his side to give him counsel.          Have faith in your sons.                         ODIN           Yes, but Thor's still a boy. He          could be a great King...           Odin stops, notices HIS HAND SHAKING. It seems to be out of          synch temporally with the rest of the world, leaving a trail          as it moves. He stares at it determinedly, concentrating,          trying to stop the strange event through the force of his          sheer will.          Finally, the occurrence subsides, his hand normal once more.          A worried Frigga covers his hand with her own.          ODIN (CONT'D)                         (QUIETLY)           ...if we only had more time.                         FRIGGA           For once, our son needs something          we cannot provide.                         ODIN           I can fight it a little longer...                         FRIGGA           No. You've put it off too long! I          worry for you.           He touches her cheek.                          ODIN           I've destroyed demons and monsters,          devastated whole worlds, laid waste          to mighty kingdoms, and still you          worry for me?                         FRIGGA           Always.  

                         LOKI           It all makes sense now. Why you          favored Thor all these years.                         ODIN           Listen...                         LOKI           Because no matter how much you          claim to "love" me, you could never          have a Frost Giant sitting on the          Throne of Asgard!           Odin's body begins to shake, he lifts his hand. It starts to          move out of synch temporarily, leaving a trail, the effect of          the Odinsleep approaching. Loki doesn't notice as Odin tries          to fight it off.                         ODIN           Listen to me!           Loki strides away towards the exit.          ODIN (CONT'D)           Loki!           Odin starts towards him, when the enormous mental, emotional,          and physical strain of recent events finally takes its toll.          The effect of the Odinsleep consumes him. His entire body          now moves out of sync with the rest of the world, leaving          trails behind him as he staggers backwards.          Odin falls back against a wall, his face contorting in a          scream. He collapses to the stone floor.          Loki, shocked, hurries to him. He takes Odin in his arms,          calls out.                         LOKI           Guards!  

Inattentive people have made fun of Odin’s ‘convenient Odinsleep’ for a long time, but the truth is, Odin had been putting off this indispensable regeneration of his physical faculties, which he underwent once a year, for too long prior to the events of Thor, precisely because he sensed grave developments in the near future and wanted to be able to control whatever Thor wouldn’t know how. Of course, we know that Odin had been doing all he could to push back the inexorable advent of Ragnarök... and it seems more and more likely that he might have cheated death for quite a long time, in all likelihood using the Odinsleep, in the knowledge that as long as he kept alive, Hela’s reign of terror would be kept at bay. At the very least, he would be affording time for his sons to grow up, and especially for Thor to grow strong enough to, maybe, with hope, go against his sister one day.

          61 INT. ODIN'S CHAMBERS - DAY 61          Frigga sits at her husband's bedside, holding his hand. Odin          lies there—looking pale and lifeless, his body and the          space around it warped from the effect of the Odinsleep. The          walls of the chamber have moved close around him, protecting          him like a dark crypt, sealing off any daylight.          Loki sits at Odin's side, across from Frigga. She speaks          softly to him.                         FRIGGA           I asked him to be honest with you          from the beginning. There should          be no secrets in a family.                         LOKI           So why did he lie?                         FRIGGA           He kept the truth from you so that          you would never feel different.          You are in every way our son, Loki,          and we your family. You must know          that.           Loki takes this in, stares at Odin.          FRIGGA (CONT'D)                         (RE: ODIN)           You can speak to him. He can see          and hear us, even now.                         LOKI           How long will it last?                         FRIGGA           I don't know. This time is          different. We were unprepared.                         LOKI           I never get used to seeing him like          this. The most powerful being in          the Nine Realms lying helpless          until his body is restored.                         FRIGGA           But he's put it off for so long          now, I fear...

Once again, I’m also left wondering whether Loki wasn’t actually the son of the same mother who gave birth to Hela—we could call her Fárbauti, since there was one in the comics and since, like in the comics, the mythological mother of Loki, Laufey, was turned into a male in Marvel lore; or Angrboða, the mother of Hel in the myths. Note that if this were true, it would give Odin an acutely realistic reason for hiding the truth of his birth from Loki, in spite of his wife’s preference for telling him from the beginning. If Asgard’s bloodier past must be obfuscated, and Hela’s very existence forgotten by all, any mention of Loki’s dangerous lineage would have required similar secrecy.

It may also be, in the same vein, that Odin was well aware of Loki’s instability, be it linked to his true parentage or not, and wished him away from absolute power. Indeed, Thor himself wasn’t that much readier for kingship, but he was a hot head more than anything, whereas Loki’s ‘mischief’ evidently always had crueller undertones. Where power is concerned, he thoroughly needed his mother’s talents for appeasement. Probably, a lot like Odin did.

 A long, long time ago, we were discussing this with people like @fostertheory​, @diana-godkiller​ (back when she was Romanovasledger) and, someone who was of immense help when it came to pondering Asgardian lifespans, amongst many other things, @survivingrealitywithoutnormality​; I recall one of the results was this:

The Young Gods: a zany theory on the possible origin for the Asgardian reputation of godliness on Earth, with the unwilling help of Norse poets.

Thinking about it again now, after three films (plus two) and a couple episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I’d say we could reprise the idea without risking complete dishonor, in fact.

Obviously, MCU!Earth is meant to imitate our own as closely as possible, and we usually are better off assuming that most events have occurred there just the way they have here. On the other hand, we know that certain things are entirely different: there is no such place as Sokovia or Wakanda, Tony Stark didn’t save the President of the U.S.A., and the rules of physics of our universe don’t actually all apply to MCU!Earth or Bruce Banner would have died a very painful death in that explosion and there wouldn’t be a Hulk in the first place to break Lavoisier’s law repeatedly with brutish application.

So I wouldn’t be cocksure about MCU mythologies matching our own in every respect, either, and I wouldn’t be so sure about their chronology. But even if we choose to be lazily reasonable and assume that the Norse myths followed roughly the same course in European history within the MCU they did in our world… well:

maybe Odin’s Asgard was, like in some comics, a repetition of past events, with Ragnarök having already happened several times and the Asgardians getting revived for a new cycle by Those Who Sit Above In Shadows (there was an Easter Egg for this theory in Thor, actually, in the form of a tablet that read exactly this in runes, next to the Eternal Flame) and there has already been a Thor and a Loki before, or several;

there is always the possibility that Odin gave his sons the names of legendary characters in Asgardian folklore; 

… or the Thor and Loki of Midgardian mythology are a mixture of reality and more or less irreverent stories woven from both older Scandinavian myths and whatever iconoclastic bullshit Asgardian deserters have been feeding their new human friends.

I tend to find the latter option more… harmonious, not to mention exceptionally tantalising: I love the idea that people like Berserker defector soon to be known as Elliot Randolph took every opportunity to secretly troll the royal family of Asgard by telling grand tales of dashing exploits to his human friends and adding a lot of frankly insulting tidbits to mock the aristocrats back home.

It’ll never happen but I’d love to see Randolph get to meet Thor, like Coulson once promised him, and suddenly realise that all the lewd jokes mayn’t have been the greatest idea, now that the brother of the King happens to be the former(?) butt of said jokes.

Chronologically speaking… as of 2017, Thor and Loki—who, it is now official, are basically twins—are 1052 or 1053 years old. The former stone mason who would become known on Midgard as Elliot Randolph enlisted in the Berserker army for a mission on Earth sometime during the late 12th century: the late 1100s, then, so back when Thor and Loki were already over a hundred years old—to be exact, they turned 135 at the beginning of the century, and would have been breaching 200 at the very least when ‘Randolph’ departed for Earth with the berserkers. If we consider the fact that Loki was already able to cast convincing illusions at only eight years of age… I say the brothers had already had ample time to make a name for themselves as an insufferable pair of royal nuisances by then, and Randolph enough material onto which, er, embroider.

Sure, the Asgardians have a lifespan or life expectancy of 5,000 odd years, and they certainly undergo decades of studies, especially the aristocrats, especially the two princes of the Crown; but, in spite of Loki’s disparaging comment in The Dark World about a human lifespan of a mere century being, to an Asgardian, ‘a heartbeat’, they probably experience the passing of time everyday roughly like humans do—and they probably age like we do before they reach adulthood. So, aged a hundred years and more, they will have had time enough to go on many a dangerous quest, and generally behave like pricks around the palace for long enough that an imaginative stone mason turned dejected soldier who decided to desert his home planet and the army to live amongst the quick-lived, ever-changing human race indefinitely, such a man certainly had ample material to work with, and a few grudges to exorcise. After all, we know a little by now the way the aristocrats themselves perceive their own actions, exploits and respective persons… but who shall give us the point of view of the ordinary folk on the subject?

                   SKYE

So… Asgardians are aliens from another planet who visited ours a thousand years ago…

                COULSON

Or more.

                   SKYE

And, because we couldn’t understand aliens, we thought they were… gods?

                COULSON

That’s what our Norse mythology comes from.

A few moments later in the episode, Skye makes this remark to Coulson:

‘You should give your buddy the God of Thunder a shot. He gets his powers from his hammer, right?’

Please notice that only a few moments before, Skye—known today as Daisy Johnson—acknowledged the fact that Asgardians are not divinities but aliens; yet she reprises the term rather matter-of-factly and speak of Thor as ‘the God of Thunder’. Once again, I don’t think, even now that Thor himself chooses to refer to himself as such, that Marvel filmmakers have ever changed their minds about the nature of the Asgardians: what truly changed is Thor’s perception of himself and his place in the grand scheme of things and his powers—if anything, I would argue that Asgardians gain the right to refer to themselves as ‘gods’ when they have accomplished enough exploits that they have become the stuff of legends, especially known for one special power. Loki is the master of illusions and Thor is basically an Asgardian mutant with an uncanny ability to manipulate electricity—for centuries, Mjöllnir served as a catalyst, but with Odin dead, Thor probably inherited certain abilities derived from the same source of Hela’s own: Asgard itself.

The stuff of legends, then. Naturally, Asgardians live for so long and are so resistant to body damage (and, arguably, psychical—the thing is, when you live that long, you must be able to withstand millennia of existence in the margins of worlds where people wither and die before you’ve had the time to love them, and you have to be vaccinated against boredom and repetition…) that the most notable of warriors end up having songs sung and theatre plays played about their Dashing Exploits whilst they’re still alive, and still going on adventures… then, as we know, they come back to Asgard and have more stories told. They don’t always have to be perfectly accurate, but they ought to be entertaining, and full of symbols, propaganda teachings and virility. I have a suspicion few Asgardian parents will prevent most of these stories to reach children’s ears, by the way.

So… as for the ancientness of Midgardian stories about gods who were born in an era corresponding to the early Middle Ages, when the stories themselves, in our reality, have their roots in Antiquity, and in fact certain figures, like this of Loki, might well have hailed from prehistoric times, surviving in one form or another. The thing is, the old peoples of Northern Europe transmitted these ancient tales orally, and some of them got written down only after this part of the continent was Christianised and clerks copied down a few—unfortunately, not without superimposing their own interpretations, integrating the Gods know how many exegetic elements… Which, mind you, is actually an excellent thing for the worldbuilder, who will then be able to cheat safely enough in stating that we simply have no proof that mediaeval clerks didn’t fuse together pieces of the stories people like Elliot Randolph would tell and (much) older myths. Indeed, in our world we may put a couple of archaeological proofs forward; but let’s agree for a moment on the idea that, in the M.C.U., it doesn’t have to be exactly like this. Let’s weave our own tales of dashing (literary) exploits.

Er… can we pretend only a couple hours passed since you’ve sent me this Ask, dear Nonny?

Sorry.

ANYHOO, I reckon the shortest answer to your question was: yes, the same could be true on Asgard. It could. I don’t think it is, personally, for reasons entirely related to the lack of any real effort on the filmmakers’ part when it comes to sci-fi their way into building their world beyond ye olde generic LotR ripoff aesthetic—which might still change with the upcoming Ragnarök, mind you. In the meantime, I’m clinging to my imperious doubts.

LOKI:I went down to Midgard to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent God, just like you.

ODIN:We are not gods! We’re born, we live, we die, just as humans do.

LOKI:Give or take five thousand years.

Frankly, the most sensible interpretation would be that Loki is counting in Midgardian years, here. The supposedly-unflattering comparison was meant to emphasise how little the humans are in front of the powerful Asgardians, and somehow I tend to think the remark would be less cutting if Asgardians lived only a good hundred years but, you know, they would still be better off than us filthy monkeys because #nothumans…

[On a side note, I’d love to attract everybody’s attention on the fact, too-often overlooked, that we’re very probably given another indication, in this scene, that Loki is, in fact, an Asgardian, physiologically, at the very least half of him.]

Concerning the passage of time on Asgard, I think we can safely assume it works the same as on Earth for a very simple, rather quaint reason, too: when Dr. Jane Foster visited Asgard for a brief amount of time, then Svartálfheim, then came back to Earth for the finale of The Dark World, no one remarked anything about her missing for any longer than she spent away. Not that it be a particularly solid proof—Jane wasn’t herself: the Aether possessing her might have preserved her somehow—but Jane didn’t appear older, nobody’s hair grew, no one ever said anything about chronological specificities, etc.

You will also note that the Bifröst allows people to travel instantaneously from Asgard to, it seems, a great number of locations (although probably within the limits of Yggdrasill), which is the only way the Asgardians can play their role (a self-appointed role, I’d wager) as some galactic force for peace. A dire, direct consequence of Thor’s destruction of the Bifröst because of Loki’s actions at the end of the first film was precisely that, with the army of Asgard stranded on their homeworld, bands of space pirates known as the Marauders immediately proceeded to raid mostly-defenceless other planets, chief of which Vanaheim, home to Hogun’s people the Vanir.

On the other hand, all of this doesn’t mean that Asgard has to have the very same temporal arrangements as Midgard does, with its 365 days a year and 24 hours per day… In fact, we don’t even share a solar system. In fact, Asgard isn’t even a planet, only a planetoid—which makes the diversity of its population utterly nonsensical, unless we posit an extraterrestrial origin to its people—and it shouldn’t be able to revolve around any sun to produce days and nights to begin with, even though they do happen, however long they may be. An interesting explanation would be that Asgard is an entirely, or partially, artificial world, created probably in the time of Odin’s grandfather Búri (who, according to the filmmakers of the second film, built the oldest parts of Asgard), and that its sun is perhaps a ‘sun’, somehow artificial as well.

At the very least we may assume that some time is to be spent by actors within these sets, which is always a welcome thought.

At this stage, we can’t decide whether it’s going to be more stone or more gold but the style might well be slightly more Scandinavian than what we saw in The Dark World, which was a rather bizarre conglomerate of decidedly-Earth-like architectural types.

It seems like we can see a small square. No idea as to which neighbourhood it might belong (is it on palace grounds?) or whether it is elevated or with water running between buildings. Anyhow, physical sets for the win!

Eeeh... I’d say there are two options to this conundrum: either we choose to assume that the breaking part was entirely intended, that the cage was indeed designed that way, or that it only broke upon hitting ground because the plot said so. In The Avengers, that wouldn’t be too surprising, this film is meant to be enjoyed as a whole, complete with plotholes.

But since we’re always meant to try and devise a semblance of explanation for even the silliest of incoherences before throwing our arms up in the air in utter exasperated defeat, I shall point at a small Thor-related detail I esteem crucial in the matter at hand:

Yes, because Loki didn’t—he couldn’t—prevent Thor from going down with the hammer inside the cage, and Thor used it to break the unbreakable glass: the Hulk might be several times stronger than an Asgardian, even stronger than Thor himself—who is shown to be somewhat more durable than his peers, be it the result of nature, training, genetic manipulation of some sorts, or simply the evident link with his weapon of choice—but Mjöllnir is stronger still.

We know the cage was designed to hold in the Hulk, and I assume S.H.I.E.L.D. had access to enough data to assess his strength and potential for damage; on the other hand, what measure did they have of Asgardian brute strength? And what reason did they have at that point to expect a visit from Thor or other?

I’ll remind you of what Nicky Fury told, er, Mr. Real-Power imprisoned there: “It was built for something a lot stronger than you”. Evidently, Fury may well have been on the side of bluffing, but we clearly saw later on that Loki is no match for the Hulk, and Loki, far from being a delicate pansy, is a prince of Asgard with a millennium worth of combat training, and at the peak of Asgardian strength. Thor only happens to be stronger than anyone else. The only beings that could defeat him were artificially enhanced by extra-Asgardian powers, such as the Hulk and Kurse.

Incidentally, if you ask me whether Loki truly expected Thor to die or not, I’ll have to say I can’t decide. Most of me believes that most of him wouldn’t see his brother totally dead, although maiming him a little and incapacitating him for the duration of Loki’s latest nefarious plan wouldn’t be an issue. Again, he didn’t really have a choice in the matter of separating Thor from his hammer but he showed some exasperation at learning from Tony Stark that Thor had survived his fall uninjured and ready to join his new companions. Which had to sting a little, as Thor is capable of making allies wherever he goes, whereas Loki has major trouble keeping his. I’m absolutely not wondering why.

This is it, folks. I have reached the peak of disorganisation, I am now making Afterthought posts before I tackle the main subject in Exploring Asgard ones—in this particular case, my working title has been Loki’s Fluffy Rabbit (Asgardian Fauna & Pets). I’ll let you be judge of the wisdom of that.

Birdie was downright unmerciful yesterday in prompting me for an exploration of the Whats and Whys and Hows of Odin’s eight-legged-horse in the Cinematic Universe, and she made me an offer I couldn’t resist:

@robin-the-mask:

What about Odin's eight-legged horse? I think we can safely say that Odin's nepotism doesn't extent to bastard children of bestiality, thus - by the fact we have normal horses, too - is this a weird case of evolution or some sort of genetic experiment? What benefit would creating a horse with eight legs bring, too? Who makes these mutant horses? Frankenson, maybe?

Later:

Seriously, I think the eight-legged horse is the biggest question here!

They have normal horses! It begs so many questions; did four-legged horses and eight-legged horses evolve separately somehow, or did someone genetically alter the horse to create Odin’s horse? If they did, what was the purpose? Do they genetically alter other animals? Is having double the limbs a sign of status? Did Odin get drunk one night and lose a bet? Does the horse move so fast we just perceive more limbs? Why? WHY? WHHHHHY?

Aaah, to get acquainted with people who share your unhealthy obsessions for asking weird logical questions about everything. My kin! <3

Alright. Let’s tackle this bitch mare head first, shall we.

The return of the prodigal Afterthoughts series as casting news for the next Thor instalment abound and we have just obtained confirmation of... a couple things, plus a few intriguing ideas—and, yes, Tessa Thompson is playing M.C.U.’s very own Valkyrie, although to which extent she will be like her comic counterpart remains to be known.

Since Ms. Thompson happens not to be the spitting image of the character in the Marvel comics, we all know better than to spend time on the comments section of a number of websites; but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t dwell for awhile on the news of her addition to the Cinematic Universe, and consider her skin colour as a great worldbuilding opportunity!

Hi-jo-to! Ho! (x)

It has been a long time since we discussed that, I think it might have been with Kestor and @survivingrealitywithoutnormality​ at some point, but Heimdall’s skin colour was a turning point in the making of some theories as to the creation of Asgard and the Asgardian population as a species. The reason is very simple: given the size and shape of Asgard, which is a tiny, flat planetoid and therefore without an equator and poles, there shouldn’t be variations in the skin colour of its inhabitants—if they were native to their world, that is.

If you are new to this blog, the M.C.U., or worldbuilding altogether—or, I dunno, to logic altogether—my working hypothesis about MCU!Asgard is that the Asgardians don’t originate from it, and that it was created, maybe from scratch, maybe from the remnants of another (theirs?) world. Which isn’t far-fetched at all considering, of course, the fact that they are an ancient race that possesses super-advanced technology (I shall firmly oppose the word “magic” but I accept “magitech”), but also and above all, that we know so, in the sense that their world is more or less powered by a sort of crystal underneath it. Probably.

“A sort of nuclear weapon” as Branagh called it in his commentary—of course the dear man had no idea of what it really was and I suspect this shall never be addressed again onscreen, or anywhere else for that matter, but at least did we get a clue as to Asgard’s nature: how about imagining some kind of utopia built by the Asgardians’ predecessors? Ásgarðr was named after its inhabitants, after all, their “enclosure”. The filmmakers of The Dark World, in an interesting interview with EmpireOnline, mentioned Odin’s grandfather Búri was the one who built (had built, more like) the most ancient parts of Asgard, which remains visible in the old city (the crew refers to it as the Medina) and the dungeons underneath: the newer parts were built on top of it, adding layers with time, and of course upgrading the technology.

So, yes, in case you didn’t know how white babies are made, it’s pretty simple: take a dark-skinned population, have it migrate through whole continents further away from the place on the planet where the sun shines so hard it had needed a dark skin to protect itself, and closer to places where keeping that skin would result in rickets-inducing vitamin D deficiency, thus provoking the birth of babies lighter and lighter-skinned as millennia go, by natural selection. There! You’ve got diversity. Basically, all you need is a spheric world and a sun which consequently, cannot shine everywhere the same.

... which is totally not the case of Asgard, naturally. It is flat. It has an ocean pouring over its edge. (On this subject, and the possible recuperation of that water, see this note).

Also notice in passing that the only Vanir we saw besides Hogun were Hogun’s people from his village on Vanaheim, where his wife and child live, and all that good folk looked suspiciously Japanese to me. Do we assume that Vanaheim is just as diverse as Midgard, phylogenesis-wise, or is there a whole planet of Japanese-looking people up there? For the record, Vanaheim isn’t flat, at least if we are to believe the Thor 2 Prelude tie-in comic:

It looks like a planet—are those multiple rings?—and at least two moons that we can see, maybe three if the bit of green in the foreground is the actual planet rather than the sphere with the rings...

In the Thor: God of Thunder videogame, which is absolutely not canon, there are interesting bits of concept art to show for it, and also the makers populated the world with more than one sentient species, as a reptilian race also inhabits the woodland realm. They are nowhere to be seen in the M.C.U. but we did see a rock troll that might be native to Vanaheim, although it could have come with the invading Marauders.

So... the evident short-cut would be to assume that South-East-Asian-looking people we may see on Asgard happen to be Vanir, but really we are free to imagine many different things, including a common origin for all these peoples. Albeit not on Asgard.

If my mother knew that I let myself be called dearest by unbeknownst individuals on the Internet, certainly she would have bitter words to say on the shreds I so obviously make out of an otherwise excellent education. Alas! vanity be the end of me, I cannot resist cajoleries.

Exploring MCU!Asgard: Undergarments & Sleepwear

(The much longer sequel to this post and the belated prequel to this one. Also it might be useful to throw a glance at that one.)

Asgardians? Beds? I’m in! for entirely scientific purposes

His take on the Blue Steel™ is the Intense Pyjama™ look. Much sombre. Very attitude. Will definitely travel to inhospitable planet later and be a total shit.Actually, I think I’ve changed my mind, this post will be made for extra-serious reasons, as neither the prospect of the pillow adhering to Loki’s hair glue nor the thought that those guys have been wearing the same outfits for years may be likely to twist my knickers in a knot.

So... what do they actually wear to sleep? For some reason, I seem to be stuck with two unavoidable, and completely contradictory, mental pictures: in one, they all go wearing but what the French refer to as Adam’s costume, whereas in the other they all look like they’re working for the Pony Express:

Quite frankly, I’m more inclined towards going commando than long johns—for our aliens, I mean—but if the men do wear underclothes, I suspect something form-fitting, if not elastic, because they do wear tight trousers, and they might well feel a wee comfier with pants that don’t crumple and bunch up around the crotchural area. It might be boxer briefs, but it might also be something akin to the Japanese fundoshi, or the Indian kaupina. Most probably, any underwear worn by the men is simply functional; adornments are evidently reserved to outer layers of an attire and meant to evoke armour.

You see? It’s simple, it can be fitted to the wearer’s liking, and you may even wear it as a beach cloth of sorts; so, what if we pursued our old idea of the Asgardians going to public baths, for instance? We could imagine a similar type of loincloth for such activities. (And now, do feel free to picture as much Thor in a thong as you’d like.)

Where the women are concerned... well, apart from one Lady Sif (she might be wearing men’s underwear, actually), they aren’t supposed to fight in the army, apparently, so they might have less immediate need of practical clothing, not to mention that they wear floor-length, chaste dresses—and that they pay a lot of attention to the upper body but definitely not the lower half, so feel free to imagine French knickers but also bloomers and other not-so-smallclothes that may be useful to prevent the skirts from turning, and also protect robes from sweat and fluids.

Under such long skirts, you can imagine pretty much anything, although I ought to point out that I really don’t picture the Asgardians overdoing themselves in the lace department. I mean, if they could made metal lace underthings, maybe. I wouldn’t risk mentioning very long underwear such as the pantalette, though, because we’ve seen Frigga’s shoes and ankles and it looked like this:

I’ll close it up a bit for you:

The queen of Asgard is officially wearing Mary Janes, and rather plain ones, if less chunky than the original type. Very small heel, but they all are very tall and probably heavier than humans, not to mention that the palace doesn’t possess especially flat floors. That royal shoes may be allowed to be that simple surely must mean that there is little attention paid to legs in general. Conversely, men have their thighs rather visible in tight leather, which has me assume that male beauty, just like in Roman Antiquity for instance, is based on muscle definition and the promise of virile strength. On the other hand, they’ve all acquired codpieces in The Dark World and I’ll have to think on the topic of modesty, one of these days.

Teddies from a 1913 fashion magazine.

In fact, people have usually slept in their underwear, or vice versa, or gone to bed in a slightly modified version of it. It’s absolutely worth noting that in the Middle Ages (13th to 15th centuries), people would usually sleep naked, even though they never slept alone—the elite started to fancy personal bedroom around the Renaissance, but everybody was still sleeping naked, or in their “day shirt”, in fact a shirt worn as underwear (especially when people only had the one and they were sleeping on straw beds).

Concerning the day shirt, men had long worn a very long one that they tucked in the breeches, and the shirt shortened on and on as the breeches became tighter and shorter themselves, as the socks gradually became stockings until they connected with the breeches... And those very high stockings ended up approaching contemporary long johns, whose top was a belt. A lot of clothing articles similarly evolved, like the jerkin protecting the skin under the armour, which later became the leotard.

So, that’s definitely an undershirt. Since he was able to get knocked out by a bit of tasering, I assume it didn’t have any particular properties—in fact, I’ve always suspected that Asgardian fighting clothes are protections in themselves, but it may just be the outer layers. Loki’s leather definitely protected him against gun bullets at close distance.

I know, I know. Blurry. Still, you may see that the shirt isn’t tucked in his trousers though we can’t make out the length of it. We never saw him bare-armed in the armour in Thor, so it’s probable this is what he was wearing underneath all the time. There are certainly sleeveless versions of it.

Loki’s prison clothes: of cattle slaughter and straps.

Referencing myself again? DECADENCE. Also, I think that he might be wearing an undershirt under his thick tunic on the left. What he’s wearing on the right is much closer to Thor’s under-armour shirt in the first film, but it’s less tight, less thin, and the fabric is a kind of (woolly?) crochet. Interestingly enough, it’s symmetrical, which is uncommon on Asgardian clothes unless they aren’t meant to be particularly aesthetic. So, we have to wonder: is that some sort of pyjama top? Or could Loki fit that underneath his multi-layered tunic(s) and armour?

Night shirts developed in the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie during the 17th century: only the wealthiest wore one to bed. Louis XIV changed his everyday, and in winter, it was warmed up before he put it on. I’ll add that the rich would have fires lit everywhere at all times, compensating the heat with windows wide open... Fabric for the night shirts was thin enough.

You will have noticed that Asgardians are allergic to windows, and indeed they love stone and metal but glass of any kind is almost absent even from the palace; I know they are exceptionally resistant and apparently not prone to the common cold, but they’re still sleeping under furs, like Odin in Thor, or sheets and blankets... And, of course, there is a fire lit in every room. Note that water also is everywhere, so the fires must be of some help against the damp!