This is another one of beautiful shots of Thor 1 that conveys a genius symbolism. Here’s Odin who pitted his children against each other for the throne and his unfair treatment of them set the brothers apart. And he is standing on a broken bridge. The bridge that was broken as the result of the brother’s conflict over the throne, over gaining Odin’s approval, over being worthy. The broken bridge of the brother’s relationship. The conflict that he fueled drove his children, literally and also figuratively on the verge of falling down into an abyss. The brothers are holding to the Gungnir, the symbol of the throne. Their hands are close to each other but the Gungnir, the throne has kept them apart. A symbol of how the throne and their rivalry for it, came between them and set them apart. And Odin, the real reason for the destruction of his family, is standing safely on the broken bridge, and he is holding Thor, his favorite son, by the ankle, while Loki is the farthest to him in this chain. A symbol of how his lies and his treatment of Loki, drove away Loki more than Thor and how in the end, they pushed Loki away, just like Odin’s “No Loki”. And as Odin had favored Thor and alienated Loki in all the years, here he held on to Thor and pushed Loki away and left him to fall in the abyss.
Be honest, if your son, even if adopted, tried to commit mass genocide of an entire planet all in the name of approval, would you say “Yes Loki” to them? Yes I’m aware that Odin fucked up when it came to raising them and was so evident in his favor for Thor, but I feel like the “No Loki” has been made into some twisted lame “I don’t love you Loki”.
When Thor went to Jotunhiem and nearly started a war, Odin punished him to teach him a lesson, sending him to live among mortals so he would humble himself. This was to show that he did not approve of Thor’s actions to seek war and bloodshed. Just the same, when Loki attempt to not only seek war but murder an entire fucking planet, Odin told him no.
“I could have done it! For you! For all of us…”
Odin’s response of “No Loki” is far from “I don’t love you.” Or “Your such a fucking disappointment.” His response was of a parent trying to correct the mistake their child made.
Did Odin fuck up in the end? Yes. Was he not the best at parenting? Absolutely. But he was far from heartless towards his son. Just go back and watch that scene, look at Odin’s expression and tell me that he was not saddened when Loki let go. Because that was pure regret if I ever saw it.
Honestly? In a situation like this, the first thing I would do, is using both of my hands to pull my children to safety first, rather than staying there and staring down at them when they are both hanging on the edge of an abyss and about to falling to their deaths. And if I see my child is in so much distress, and it seems like they are not mentally stable at the moment that the first thing they say when they are so much close to death, is desperately seeking my approval, I would say sth to calm them down, not a refusal, and not an approval, sth neutral like “I know”, because that’s not the right time to correct their mistakes. Also if my child, actually both of my children, think that committing genocide is what I want them to do and earns my approval, then I think that’s definitely because I as a parent made huge mistakes in teaching them what is right and what is wrong. Their mistake is on me.
Thor, before his banishment had no problem with committing genocide. He screamed
“We’ll finish them together father!”
and killed so many Jotuns just because he was called a princess and would murder them all if Odin agreed with him. He didn’t nearly start a war. He started the war. Odin asked Laufey to ignore Thor’s actions and Laufey didn’t accept and stated that they are going to get what they seek, war. Loki wanted to finish that war. Why Loki thought committing genocide would gain him Odin’s approval? Why Thor thought Odin would help him finish Jotuns? Because Asgardians are racist toward Jotuns. Because Thor and Loki were taught their entire life that Jotuns are nothing more than monsters. Loki’s heritage was such a huge deal that according to Odin he had to be protected from the truth! Then Loki learned that he was supposed to be used as a political pawn to bring permanent peace with Jotunheim, a permanent peace that would nullify Jotunheim’s danger forever. So since Odin’s plans for him no longer mattered, he wanted to show that he is not useless. That he can do what Odin wanted to use him for, and eliminate Jotunheim’s danger. So yes, he though using a way to kill all the monster without any casualty to Asgardians would make Odin happy. Because Odin never actually condemned Thor for killing Jotuns. And by killing Jotuns Loki could also prove that he is loyal to Asgard and he is an Odinson. To Loki who thought he wasn’t worthy and less loved and ignored because of his race, that “No Loki” was the last straw. That “No” meant no matter what he did, he could never be worthy in the eye of Odin, no matter how he tried, what he was going to see was only disappointment from Odin. To Loki that “No” meant “I don’t love you”, “You are not worthy”, “You are not enough and you are never going to enough”. If it wasn’t it wouldn’t drove Loki to commit suicide. I never said Odin was heartless but he was a terrible parent. A terrible parent who pitted his children against each other for the throne since they were very young, who favored one son, lied to his adopted son about his heritage and raised him with racist beliefs about his own race and made him feel unloved and unworthy. He was saddened and regretted that his actions drove his son to commit suicide? He sure showed it next time by “Your birthright was to die” and “Frigga is the only reason you are still alive.”
just wanting to prove a quick point here. reblog if you believe loki is a complex, well-developed, three-dimensional character who didn’t deserve to be killed in the first 5 minutes of the movie. let’s see how many we are
Okay, so Tony’s a half-dragon. No big deal, really. He doesn’t have the whole ‘transformation’ problem of the full dragons, where he has to find a place to shift or go mad. He just has an affinity for fire and the things he can make with it, and okay, mayyyyybe he tends to hoard things (and people, and ideas, and-) but hey, that’s the perk of being a billionaire, right? He can indulge his whims and it’s just written off as eccentricity. He likes bright, loud things – music, cars, and the Iron Man armor especially. Plus, it lets him fly!
He’s never really thought there could be a downside – knights hadn’t been a thing for hundreds of years, and anyone who might try to claim he was anything other than human wasn’t about to be believed. So imagine his shock when Loki picked him up by the throat and whispered, “I don’t know what you are, but I’ll claim you for my pet when I’ve finished with the humans,” right before he tossed him out the window.
Those words stick with him and haunt him, and ultimately, those words are what lead him to agree to take Loki when Thor shows up with his wounded blue wreck of a brother after the convergence and asks Tony to give him sanctuary. Apparently Loki helped save the universe, but he had to bust out of prison to do it, so he’s been declared a traitor and so much as setting foot back in Asgard will mean his death. Tony figures house (or, rather, Tower) arrest is a piece of cake compared to all that.
He had planned on asking Loki how the god knew that he wasn’t fully human, but when Loki finally comes out of his room, Tony chickens out. Or maybe it just doesn’t matter anymore, given that Loki’s still fucking blue, so being a half-dragon instead of whatever-the-hell-Loki-is suddenly seems pretty damn good. Tony decides not to worry about it, especially since Loki appears to have forgotten all about it. Or at least, that’s what he thinks.
Cue some kind of need for the Avengers to fight a battle way up north in Canada. In the dead of winter. And Tony and Loki get separated from the rest, and that’s when Loki suggests that Tony use his ‘powers, as I assume you have some’ to stay alive, since Loki doesn’t really feel the cold. Thing is, while Tony has an affinity for fire no matter what, he has to do his partial shift to create fire. So he does, and he discovers he’s a little warmer that way, so he stays like that while they wait for the others to find them. They talk, probably about being different from the people around them, and I’m thinking there’s a kiss that leads to Loki creating an inadvertent snow, and there you have the glitter!
just wanting to prove a quick point here. reblog if you believe loki is a complex, well-developed, three-dimensional character who didn’t deserve to be killed in the first 5 minutes of the movie. let’s see how many we are
In seriousness, I think it was just … his utter complexity as a character? There are so many layers to Loki, you can keep peeling them back and peeling them back and still never quite reach the core of what makes him tick. He is mercurial and callous, he is insecure and damaged, he is jaded and cynical, he is intelligent and witty, he is mischievous and sly. He feels things so deeply, though it is often to his own detriment, and he has an enormous capacity to love, but sabotages it by his equally enormous capacity for self-loathing. He wears so many masks – villain, anti-hero, savior, trickster – but for all of his layers and identities, there isn’t a bit of true, unrepentant evil in him. Not at all. His villainy lacks conviction, as Coulson pointed out, and comes from a place of deep pain, not true cruelty. He is not irredeemable. He’s like a puzzle piece that never quite fits anywhere, but has not yet discovered that this is what makes him so preciously rare. He has yet to find value in himself, but there’s the sense that he could, eventually. He’s made strides in that direction. And I think all of these factors just culminate in a character whose complexity makes him achingly relatable, because in a world full of superheroes, some of us are just the insecure, strange puzzle pieces still trying to figure out where we fit.
My real issue with this(apart from the fact that it’s not a fix for all the pain that Odin caused) is that it’s too damn late. Yes, Loki needed to hear it and it’s good that he finally did. But he needed it much sooner.
He needed to hear “I love you too, brother” from Thor before the coronation instead of “Thank you”.
He needed to hear “I love you” from Odin instead of “You are my son”. Because they aren’t the same thing. He needed to be sure of his place and his father’s love for him instead of feeling like a useless relic: “Bring about permanent peace through you. But those plans no longer matter”.
I was waiting the whole time that somebody tells Loki that he is loved but it didn’t happen.
Next time he sees Odin, he is told that “Your birthright was to die!” and he is sentenced to solitary confinement for life. Thor doesn’t visit. He only sees his mother by illusions. None of his family sees it fit to tell him that his mother died. He isn’t even given a chance to say goodbye.
This “I love you” is too late. These words don’t match the actions. They are too little, too late.
Odin, you used that word, but I don’t think it means what you think it means.
I can’t help but think that must have felt like the worst gaslighting to Loki.
Also, it truly is interesting to note that until that moment, the only person in that entire fucked up family to verbally express love…was Loki.
That read to me as the worst kind of gaslighting too, and my reactions were mostly on the line of poor Loki that gets those words when they not only mean nothing, but actually are a hurt and an insult. Though I can very well see Odin meaning them. I understand that some fans are upset that there was not satisfactory resolution (and some are upset, and IMO kinda rightly-ish about that others have decided that this throwaway bone of gaslighting from an old dad not very clear in their mind WAS enough and should feel enough to Loki, to us), but it actually fits extremely well with the history and MO of that fucked up family, and quite realistically parallels a lot of RL shit. Odin in all likelihood thinks/thought he loved his sons (nobody is a villain in their own mind), and he was still a shit dad. And he died a shit dad, to all his MCU-acknowledged kids. Not that he’s much better dad in comics – and honestly, anyone at least partly familiar with northern mythos would not think Odin would be a ‘good dad’ the way we nowadays think one should be. Odin just… isn’t. Odin is a mean clever tricksy darkish vengeful smart fickle fascinating fear-inducing petty god of the battlefield, wisdom and death. None of those things, except maybe death, are really ever kind to children.
Ok, so this one is going to be more outline, because this one wants to be an entire AU.
So, Methos is a couple hundred years post dropping Kronos down a well and walking away from being Death on a horse when he meets this very young and somewhat confused sorcerer (ok, so he assumes sorcerer rather than alien or deity, ‘cause hey, he’s not that far away from having been all but a god himself, and still is working on not thinking of himself as one, so he’s just going “there are no gods”, because it works for him).
And he really doesn’t think he’s in any fit state to teach anyone anything, but this barely-more-than-a-kid (still a kid, honestly, Loki’s a teenager who’s experimenting with magic, and poking at things, and accidentally poked at a way to get between one world and another without using the Bifrost. He’s still trying to figure out how he did that) really needs someone to look out for him, at least. Because oh is he clueless. And a bit arrogant as sorcerers so often are, but Methos can live with that. (He’s lived with worse, and recently. This is nothing.)
… Things go downhill from there. Because nothing can go wrong with a confused and cranky teenager who’s experimenting with magic and an ex-terrorist with an ego the size of Europe, right?
Methos and Loki will never admit to what happened that first month or so they knew each other. There may or may not have been witnesses, accidental shape-shifting, and an incident with a horse. (The myths have to come from somewhere, and after all this time, who knows how the story distorted?)
And that covers the tropes themselves.
Fast forward to post-Highlander canon, and oh, about the time Thor’s hammer lands in New Mexico.
Methos is hiding from MacLeod, the Watchers, and probably his bar tab with Joe, and he’s meandering his way toward Mexico because tropical sounds like a plan. He hears about this weird hammer out in the desert when he stops at a bar, and decides to go take a look, because curiosity has always been a weakness of his (or a strength, depending on how you look at it, but this time, he decides it was definitely a weakness).
He might not recognize Mjolnir on sight, but he does recognize the decorations on it, and is contemplating bolting, because he Does Not Get Involved these days… except Coulson shows up, and Methos has the misfortune of being recognized because of a short disaster of a lifetime that was the one just after Adam Pierson, and is supposed to have been dead for the last several years.
Methos is not best pleased to be stuck in New Mexico, and even less so when after they catch Thor trying to get his hammer back, Loki shows up. Granted, he’s there to make sure that Thor never tries to come back to Asgard, but that doesn’t mean he lacks a few minutes to spare to drop in on an old friend.
This shapes up to be several more awful first meetings. (Thor, Sif, the Warrior’s Three, Jane and Darcy, Clint Barton. Methos is not entirely sure this is better than having to deal with Watchers, MacLeod, and Joe refusing to give him more beer until he pays up – which wouldn’t be a problem if the old Watcher would just take his money, instead of insisting he pay his bar tab with true stories.)
Shit happens, Thor goes home, and Methos hopes that maybe things will settle down. Except, no, he doesn’t get to go hide somewhere tropical and warm and lovely and spend a lazy decade on a beach somewhere. No, he gets dragged off by Coulson to meet some director or another, and oh, look, someone else from early on in that disaster of a lifetime, does someone have it out for him? (Why, yes, yes the author does have every intention of making your life entertaining, Methos, why do you ask?)
Which is how Methos gets unwillingly recruited to SHIELD, and ends up being on the helicarrier when Loki is brought in during Avengers.
This goes about as well as you think it does. Put one ex-terrorist with 5000+ years of experience in how to fuck with humans, and one alien sorcerer with PTSD who is about to make a spectacular game of getting himself safely away from his abuser on the same flying vehicle, and launch a brain-washed assassin and a team of mercenaries at it.
Yeah.
Methos has a newly-Immortal Coulson on his hands, a desire to go after Loki and ask him what the fuck, and also Thor has noticed he’s here. This is fine. Great. Excellent. He’s glad he arranged for the other three Horsemen to end up short their heads, so at least that can’t go wrong.
He’s still not going to get that lazy decade on a tropical beach any time soon.
…. And that’s where my brain goes “need more input before weaving Methos into the whole of the franchise”.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 