To me, the biggest contrast here is T’challa appears as a grown man in his vision, while Erik appears as a child. Both reflect their inner mind, their core emotional state.
As a man, T’challa is emotionally honest about his grief and the fact that he’s not ready to let his dad go. Erik, on the other hand, says he’s accepted his father’s death, that “It’s just life around here”, but his appearance as a boy suggests that it’s a lie told from immaturity, one that comes from the belief that tears are a sign of weakness.
Their reactions after waking up from thier visions further add to this. T’challa is smiling. He’s overjoyed to have seen his father. While he still misses T’chaka, he’s truly at peace with his father’s passing. Erik is in distress when he wakes up, confused, and maybe a bit disoriented. The absence of his father was a huge blow to him, and the flood of memories that the vision brought back were too much for him. They left him emotionally wrecked.
Keen analysis
This is the exact reason I made this gifset. I was rewatching the movie with my boyfriend last night, and I was talking to him about this, and I realized even though I had loved this parallel, I had never giffed it. I’m going to add a few more notes to what said above:
Confirmation of Erik’s lack of honesty about how he truly feels about the loss of his father can be found in the fact that once the movie shifts from child Erik to adult Erik again, he’s shown with a tear running through his face. Because the childish mask of denial is off.
Erik being tied to the past in constrast with T’Challa, I believe you can also see this with the setting. T’Challa immediately steps into the field of the ancestral plane, free of his past even if not indifferent to the pain. Erik is stuck in the apartment in California. He cannot get into the plane, because he is trapped inside the past, his anger feeds on his personal pain more than his ideals.
The movie raises the question of what a good father does. At first you’re left to wonder “is it true what T’Chaka says? That a father who hasn’t prepared his son to be without him has failed as a father?”. You’re only getting an answer an hour later or so. Erik’s father in tears says “Well, look at what I have done”.
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
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff & Vali, Pietro Maximoff & Nari, Vali & Nari & Loki Characters: Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff, Vali, Nari Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, GFY Series: Part 7 of Ofinn Börn Summary:
Red spills like blood from Vali’s hands, Wanda’s smile sharp and vicious as any wolf. Nari moves like light itself, Pietro laughing as he gathers their sister-brother to his chest.
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff & Vali, Pietro Maximoff & Nari, Vali & Nari & Loki Characters: Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff, Vali, Nari Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, GFY Series: Part 7 of Ofinn Börn Summary:
Red spills like blood from Vali’s hands, Wanda’s smile sharp and vicious as any wolf. Nari moves like light itself, Pietro laughing as he gathers their sister-brother to his chest.
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff & Vali, Pietro Maximoff & Nari, Vali & Nari & Loki Characters: Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff, Vali, Nari Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, GFY Series: Part 7 of Ofinn Börn Summary:
Red spills like blood from Vali’s hands, Wanda’s smile sharp and vicious as any wolf. Nari moves like light itself, Pietro laughing as he gathers their sister-brother to his chest.
Iron Man 3 – dir. Shane Black “Are you going completely mental?”
How do u fly into the vacuum of space and get swallowed by a space whale and have ur house blown up with u in it and almost drown and get shredded up by an aircraft propellor and still think u might not have ptsd
Denial is a hell of a drug.
If Tony admitted to having it then he’d have to do something about it, and doing something about it would interfere with all of his coping mechanisms for dealing with it. And Tony simply doesn’t have the time for a breakdown; not now, or any other day of the week. Maybe he can schedule one in for three years from next Tuesday…nope, that’s not a good time for it, either.
Also, facing his recent PTSD would probably involve, to some degree, facing the PTSD from his childhood, and I think he’d rather launch himself through another portal into outer space while carrying a thermonuclear device again than deal with the issues he has with his father / his father’s alcoholism.
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!
There's a Mirror on the Wall 