ꐇꁹꂑ꓅ꐟ꒓ꋫꂑꁹ

Legitimate son. I will never wear a buskin mask.

What the hell?

# rant # rant # rant

I think its darn telling that when Marvel saw the reaction to Loki at Comic Con, their response was to try and TURN HIM INTO THOR and then recreate that response. And it simply ended up pitiful - because we don’t want Thor to replace Loki, we want Thor to be Thor and Loki to be Loki. But Marvel collectively just can’t seem to connect the dots or colour between the lines in regards to Loki.

The implied message in this scene is either, “No no no, you’re supposed to see Thor that way, not Loki. Look now see, Loki isn’t good enough, even he thinks so, we’ll turn him into Thor and then you cheer for him.” Or, “We can’t see Loki as being this important, so we’ll turn him into Thor for this scene because we actually believe that makes any sort of sense.” Either way, it’s Marvel hiding their heads in the sand, and taking a tremendous crap on the relevance Loki’s character holds towards the audience, either because they cannot see it or will not tolerate it.

Meanwhile, we all saw this deleted scene and cheered like at Comic Con, amazed, because what’s better than Loki? Thor, of course, right?? 

Pfff. No. 

We mostly all went on a boo-hoo pity-party on Loki’s behalf, because of how pathetic and insecure this deluded little daydream comes across as. “Oh shame, poor Loki only thinks he’s good enough when he’s trying to be Thor, poor Loki, he must realize he’s good enough as he is…” Meanwhile it’s not Loki who is creating deluded little daydreams and illusions; it’s the writers. They continue to degrade Loki for who he is, while gawping in bewilderment as the audience largely continues to ignore them, and esteems Loki as important anyway. 

All this did is add to the already astronomical sympathy this character has garnered, due to his oft perceived to be unfair treatment by the writing, the narrative and Marvel. It was probably cut for causing too much sympathy. (And lets be honest, most of Loki’s cut scenes seem to raise a lot more sympathy and depth to him - that’s probably why they get cut.)

For me, apart from raising sympathy, it also raises eyebrows at Marvel for being so incredulously daft. I mean really - did they think this would recreate the success of Comic Con??

^ Loki standing up in shame, deluding himself to an illusion, wiping himself out in self hatred, pretending to be good enough by making himself into Thor… 

^ vs Loki standing up in pride, in real life, being his glorious self and knowing it, being acknowledged by real people who esteem him for who he is and for who he could be!

~

Which 

do 

you

think 

we 

prefer, 

Marvel??

~

Loki being Thor? 

or Loki being Loki? Hmm??

I swear Marvel has signed some sort of contract in blood committing themselves to have their heads as far up their ass as possible when it comes to recognizing what to do with this character.

But notably, that was all after TDW. And degrading Loki wasn’t the intention behind this scene. What the MCU used to do to Loki pre-Ragnarok is delete every single scene in which he comes across as sympathetic, every scene that contrasts him being the powerhungry villain out to steal a throne, so that the audience takes what other characters and the framing say about him at face value. They want Loki to be a villain because that is easier, because that lines up with audience expectations and is therefore the safe option (and good for having villain-branded merchandise and stuff). They have never wanted Loki to be the grey character he is and just stuffed him into a black box, despite Loki never fitting into any box being a core trait of his. For sure, the MCU never liked Loki’s existance, but they got rid of him by deleting him but mostly not by degrading him or by propping Thor up. There is a reason Loki’s appearances in TDW are seen as the best parts of that movie.

Coming back to this scene, if the intention was to degrade Loki and prop Thor up, why would they delete it? It would fit in with their goals after all and they would probably make it a priority goal to keep that in the movie somehow (note that the director of this movie expressed discontent with the way execs at Marvel had the final say at what scenes were allowed into the movie).

It’s far more likely that this scene was meant exactly the way we interpreted. That the symbology of the red cloak and Mjolnir was indeed Loki thinking no one would love him unless he became like Thor in the eyes of the people of Asgard. In universe it makes perfect sense, Loki has always felt different, seen as lesser because he was interested magic and books and not at all like shiny Thor.

I have to say that I don’t like the way the previous addition to this post called Loki’s “daydream” pathetic. Considering that Loki was sentenced to 4000(?) years of solitary confinement with no contact except with Frigga, who kept trying to manipulate him into accepting Odin as his parent and falling back in line with how Odin wants him to behave (as his tool), and the fact that he wasn’t allowed out to have fresh air or feel the sun or anything, he had very little to fill his time with other than books. It’s only natural that he’d try to find some other entertainment or a way to pretend this wasn’t the situation he was in. If reality is being stuck in those 4 walls forever, why not pretend to have what you always wanted (love and affection) instead? It’s just sad that he feels like he has to be Thor in order to get that, even in his dreams.

I hadn’t actually noted the similarities between this scene and Tom’s appearance at comic-con, mostly because of the differences in Loki’s body language here. At comic-con it’s Loki’s proud, arrogant act, the one he puts on in order to hide his insecurities and give away no weaknesses. In the deleted scene we see underneath that, we get to see what Loki wants the most, we get to see his true feelings. He’s way more hesistant than at comic-con. Both are part of him, obviously, but because these appearances are two different sides of the same character, I hadn’t seen the link until I saw this post.

Going back to the intentions behind the deleted scene, if it isn’t meant the way we interpreted it, it’s more likely that they meant to show Loki as dreaming of stealing Thor’s power and becoming king instead of tryign to prop Thor up. After all, that’s how Marvel wants us to view Loki and how the main audience does view him and would have interpreted that scene (maybe in the end it’s better that it was deleted, because now the show wasn’t able to stain this scene the way it did so many others). But even then, why delete it if that was the intention? They notably only deleted scenes that make Loki sympathetic and if the intention was to show Loki as being powerhungry, I don’t think they would have deleted it. So that makes me think that our interpretation is the correct one.

I could be wrong. A lot of what we read into TDW wasn’t entirely intentional. I’m pretty sure that Frigga was in fact meant to be a perfect mother and her intentions to call Loki out on his behaviour towards his family were meant to be viewed at face value. Even though he was right to call Odin out on his hypocrisy. I don’t even think they meant Loki’s sentence as solitary confinement, even though that is what it is, but as “just” a life sentence. And they may not entirely have intended the toxic abusive family dynamics this movie ended up painting. Notably, in articles surrounding this movie they did talk about Loki as powerhungry I believe, which would be a retcon of Thor 1 as well as Loki’s hidden, actual circumstances in Avengers. That article could have been the creator’s true views, but it could also just as well have been messaging Disney wanted to push (they muddled the summary of the first Thor movie back when it released to show Loki as stealing the throne too, when we know that’s not true!). Or it could’ve just been red herring in order to shock the audience when the opposite happened.

in any case, we’ll likely never known, especially after Disney’s retcon of Loki in the show. They got what they always wanted in the end. It still triggers me whenever I see another person talking about how the ending of the show was the best thing ever written and the perfect character arc for Loki when it was wrong from the very concept. There’s no way they’ll reveal the deleted scene as anything other than a powerhungry delusion.

thing thats bad: aww

thing that has both genuinely amazing pieces of storytelling and abysmal dogshit slop both happening like entirely interchangably:

FUN FACT: VAL'S CURRENT ATTIRE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HIS WEDDING CLOTHES !!!!!

But I liked it SO much I kept it as his uniform. Also I was like "nah they wouldn't marry so young lmao"

They would probably do that years after their firstborn.

They'd look something like this >:]

Val in a poncho....

Also Loki without horns because they have kissed enough to be able to tell Val would be bonked with them... and finally anyone can see the excuse as to why I've drawn him with muscles all this time: So he can pick up Loki