Something that I think about a lot, in terms of how hard Loki is on himself, is all of the internal struggle that he maybe takes on that were never meant to be things that contributed to his mental break, but they got tangled up in it anyway.
I mean, we all know that Loki’s struggle has been hidden away for so long. In Thor 1, pre-Jotunheim Loki gives off this demure energy, in that yes, we know he’s mischievous and he’s a warrior and he’s a mage and all of that - but, he’s not quite a presence yet, not a force to be reckoned with. In later movies, Loki walks around with his sass and his antagonism and all of his mercurial energy on display no matter who doesn’t like it - but, before JOtunheim, it was all locked away.
And we know that Loki internalizes blatant jabs at him, such as Volstagg’s silver tongue turned to lead? and similar things, but what about moments that maybe weren’t jabs or mockery against him yet he interpreted them as something to be embarrassed about?
I’m thinking about the pre-coronation scene, and how uncomfortable it all is if you think about the entire thing from Loki’s perspective. Here he is, joking with Thor and trying to connect with him, and all he gets in return is jabs about his magic and overt mockery. He starts out on an uneven playing field. Thor makes his crack about “some do battles, others do tricks,” and the servant laughs.
Loki’s expression is so interesting here, because it’s as if he freezes - is this servant, this nobody, openly laughing at a prince of Asgard? - but then he collects himself within a fraction of an instant. He turns the wine to snakes, the servant is appropriately chagrined (but not, notice, punished in any way even though he could have been), and the moment passes.
Except it doesn’t really pass. It’s one of those little micro-aggressions that only fuels into Loki’s rage, simmering beneath the surface. And sometimes I think about how it contributed to how Loki might have felt during that entire exchange with Thor that follows: Loki’s been openly laughed at in front of Thor, Thor doesn’t stick up for him and only calls the incident “a waste of good wine,” and yet even so, Loki is perceptive enough to see that Thor is nervous.
And he decides to reach out. He gives Thor a very genuine, heartfelt, reassuring speech, ending with, “never doubt I love you,” and even though Thor looks touched and happy, he doesn’t return the sentiment. He just says, “Thank you.” As if Loki has done him a favor rather than tried to connect with him.
Thor gives Loki his patented neck-grab, yeah, but then he finishes it with a pat, like he’s rewarding Loki for his words. Not returning them. And I feel like that would have been additionally humiliating for Loki, in this kind of subtle way. I don’t feel like Loki expresses open emotion like that easily, and to open himself up to Thor only to have Thor simply acknowledge it as a favor without returning the feelings must have felt like even more embarrassment coiling in Loki’s core. I imagine his skin crawled with discomfort.
I realize I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been said before, but I think my point is that we focus a lot on how other people have humiliated and mocked Loki in various ways, but I don’t ever see too much about how Loki humiliates himself, in that incidents that other people may brush off are things that, due to his massive inferiority complex, Loki internalizes and hates himself for; things that maybe make him wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night because, oh god, remember that time I told Thor I loved him and he just said thank you?
You know? How many of us have those embarrassing moments that haunt us for years afterwards, things that everyone else has long forgotten about? It makes me wonder how many times it’s happened over the years, that Loki has done something or said something or made some error or whatever, and in reality it likely wasn’t that big of a deal or it wasn’t something anyone else dwelled on (although Thor was too wrapped up in himself to recognize Loki reaching out, I very much doubt he judged Loki for it or thought less of him or anything else; the embarrassment in that moment is in Loki’s mind, only) but, to Loki, it feels like the end of the world?
It’s like he’s dragging a cart full of rocks behind him, and along the way, other people around him toss a few into it - hey, mind carrying this for me, Loki? You’ve got the cart anyway - and he smiles and says sure, sure, no problem, and doesn’t mention how his arms are beginning to hurt or his brow is sweaty. And along the way, every so often, he’ll pick up his own rocks to add to the cart until he’s struggling along, trying to keep moving despite the increasing weight of both his rocks and everyone else’s rocks, and then suddenly he’s focused so much on the cart that he doesn’t see the boulder that flies at him out of nowhere and slams him in the face and knocks him cold. It takes him down. The cart has tipped over and the rocks have spilled everywhere and, instead of trying to pick them up and right the cart, he just screams fuck it, and kicks the cart, and leaves all of the rocks out there, exposed to everyone, scattered in a mess every which way he looks.
He leaves them there, and from then on out, anytime someone says, hey, mind carrying this for me Loki? he sneers and says carry your own fucking rocks, and then whoever asked is insulted, like Loki is just a mean, terrible person. They’ve completely forgotten about all the rocks that spilled before.
And I think that’s pretty apt to describe how everyone thinks Loki is a villain without acknowledging both how hard they’ve been on him and how hard he’s been on himself, forever, without reprieve. It’s like Loki’s been set up to fail in every possible way, including with his own perception about how he’s treated.
The worst part is that I think that even though after Thor 1 and his fall, he’s very outwardly antagonistic and full of sass and all of the wonderful things that make him such a force to be reckoned with, there’s probably always going to be that little voice in his head that judges him for anything he does. That mocks him. There are probably things he still jerks awake from in the middle of the night - god, I can’t believe I even tried to talk to Thor about Odin’s lies - but instead of letting the rocks spill, he just … stifles them. Thor tries to talk to Loki later (in Ragnarok) and Loki doesn’t want to bother.
Loki’s still got that cart of rocks, you see. It’s just that now he only carries around his own, fuck everybody else’s. But the weight is still as heavy as ever.
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