Ire's blog for yapping

[ireisms]

This will be a pinned post. I need to make it pretty. I'll get back to that.

[ireisms]

Actually, it's funny to think about the implication that Thor and Loki were supposed to, on a lot of levels, iron out each other's kinks, so to speak, like Loki was genuinely supposed to function as the brains and the reason, and Thor as the brawn and the action, (grossly oversimplified version), which, again, is so crazy to think about on a lot of levels and only enforces some frankly dangerous co-dependency (Which is still clearly a thing in some way) but also imagining it in practise if the events of Thor 1 didn't happened is nuts AND on top of all this, this isn't addressing Loki's actual heritage or the fact that Odin initially had some sort of plan for that, to, essentially gain everlasting peace between Asgard and Jotunheim. Like how!!! We're only given that he hoped to unite their kingdoms someday through Loki, but we don't know how. Marry Loki off to someone in Jotunheim? Like, that feels like the most obvious answer, and yet you have to wonder why it wasn't put in motion in some way before Thor's coronation to the throne, unless it was and it All Went Sour, but Loki makes no reference to any such thing when he finally Finds Out, so again, many things to think about.

[oswildin]

Loki to Odin was a contingency plan. So, he was being kept ‘just in case’ war broke out again between Asgard and Jotunheim, but even then… That’s kinda a stupid plan… Because let’s look at the two options here:

1. Odin took Laufey’s newborn, bastard son and saved him from “dying in the cold”, and was planning to use Loki as a ‘well, we have the heir of Jotunheim’ (assuming there isn’t an older sibling anywhere), to… unite the realms…? Why would Laufey care…? According to Odin, Loki was left to die…

2. Odin took Laufey’s newborn son who was the heir from the temple, where he was left for protection from the battle and Odin basically stole Loki from his family and was planning to go ‘hey, remember that son you had and lost? yeah, I have him, I saved him, you owe me’…? Laufey would… assume and know Odin stole Loki… That wouldn’t be a good peace treaty foundation??? Surely that would make things worse?!

So… yeah, both kinda suck from a strategic perspective (imo, but what do I know, I’m not a King of Nine Realms lmao). The ‘someday’ in Odin’s explanation does allude more to ‘the further future’ rather than immediate, but…

I imagine Odin had planned to use Loki literally not long after he found him and took him as a way to get Laufey to end the war and form a peace treaty, but he ended up not needing to do that. (This just makes more sense to me personally). So… he just had a Jotun baby in his possession… and was likely like:

“What do I do with this now?”

Andddd decided to keep him — ‘just in case’.

We could assume, if he truly believed Loki was left to die, that Odin didn’t want to sneakily return Loki once the treaty had been made because Loki would likely… well, die. Odin is manipulative and can be cruel/ruthless but he isn’t completely heartless.

I like to headcanon that Frigga was the one who reminded Odin that Loki was just an innocent baby, and sort of… encouraged him to keep him and raise him as their own. But either way, it’s so messed up that Loki had been alive for probably less than 72 hours and already was being used as a bargaining chip/political tool.

[ireisms]

Oh, yeah, I totally agree!! Both options are kind of silly when you think about it, and definitely don't work via the lore of Loki's abandonment.

There's also a deleted MCU scene that I always treat as REALLY important that came before Loki killing Laufey, where Loki DOES turn up to Laufey and is like, yeah, so I'm your son! And Laufey is like lmfao you should have died, and it's a real shame you didn't. Odin's problem now. (This also makes a lot of sense of the way Loki killed Laufey/the general "personal" vibe when that went down, like it was supposed to go a little bit BEYOND Loki just coming off as bitter he was abandoned or showing off as a misguided loyalty pledge to Odin.) But like, yeah, Laufey did not gaf about Loki, which proves he wasn't stolen as a prize; he was taken as rubbish. (I believe Loki does make a reference to this as well iirc; It's just been a looong time and I can't remember exactly where, but he pretty much likens himself to being picked up as rubbish.) BUT also, nonetheless, I've never felt those things matched what I felt was being implied in the first place. I feel like what was actually being implied was either marrying Loki off to one of the Jotun, which feels like the more straightforward thing. Make a political match between Loki and a Jotun to strengthen the bond between the kingdoms. Drop the truth bomb on Loki after the fact. The problem there is that Loki had been deeply, deeply poisoned against his own people and culture and would likely be unwilling to consider being with a Jotun in the first place. (Particularly when his brother is being given way better things, such as the Throne of Asgard) We could say this is supported by the fact Loki tried to wipe Jotunheim off the map entirely, although one has to wonder how Loki might feel about the entire situation under different circumstances and if Laufey gave a fuck about him at all and by the canon context, Jotunheim isn't the greatest runner-up prize, especially in comparison to somewhere like Asgard.

The other possibility is that Odin planned to install Loki as Ruler of Jotunheim down the line by force, and Asgard, as proven in the third movie, has a long history of hostile takeovers and conquests. That would make sense except the whole first movie is kind of about Odin not wanting Thor to behave in the way he had in the past and wanting to make Thor a better person, HOWEVER, this being said, the lesson was only begun and learned after LOKI'S actions and we could say Odin had not foreseen any of that so maybe he did plan to step down from the throne, have Thor take over and get established, then work on pretty much muscling Loki onto the throne of Jotunheim, this working only because Loki is the only ""asgardian"" who we could imagine wouldn't suffer too much physically by having to partially live there.

Loki's cooperation could still be murky here, and we'd still be relying on the idea of Loki going with it more out of duty than out of pleasure, depending on how you want to look at it, but I'd say it'd be a more pleasurable experience for Loki than having to potentially wed someone he just didn't like/want for any reason beyond a political scheme not even cooked up by himself. This version, however, also relies on Odin dropping the truth nuke on Loki after the fact and how Loki would handle it in those specific circumstances.

It would be interesting to imagine a world in which this does happen. Maybe even a world where Laufey dies in the conflict before Loki finds out anything, and Loki, rather than being a completely good and willing little conqueror's tool, starts thinking, "hey maybe we shouldn't be treating my people this way" especially under the assumption that he hasn't had a horrible run-in with his biological father that further turns him on his own kind and would thus be allowed to freely imagine that maybe he was stolen and maybe allow himself to see the Jotun as the victims in this situation. Marvel... What If, I need you to get on this for me LMAO.

[ireisms]

Actually, it's funny to think about the implication that Thor and Loki were supposed to, on a lot of levels, iron out each other's kinks, so to speak, like Loki was genuinely supposed to function as the brains and the reason, and Thor as the brawn and the action, (grossly oversimplified version), which, again, is so crazy to think about on a lot of levels and only enforces some frankly dangerous co-dependency (Which is still clearly a thing in some way) but also imagining it in practise if the events of Thor 1 didn't happened is nuts AND on top of all this, this isn't addressing Loki's actual heritage or the fact that Odin initially had some sort of plan for that, to, essentially gain everlasting peace between Asgard and Jotunheim. Like how!!! We're only given that he hoped to unite their kingdoms someday through Loki, but we don't know how. Marry Loki off to someone in Jotunheim? Like, that feels like the most obvious answer, and yet you have to wonder why it wasn't put in motion in some way before Thor's coronation to the throne, unless it was and it All Went Sour, but Loki makes no reference to any such thing when he finally Finds Out, so again, many things to think about.

[ireisms]

Also, think, like, if Loki ever truly was the "bad brother" on a genuine level, Thor would probably never be able to "punish" him the way it was due, and Loki, well, we saw Loki straight up kill Thor (although indirectly) in the latter half of Thor 1 and apparently just not process it at all, which is like. Absolutely devastating on a lot of levels, and just as well it was the thing that proved Thor Worthy tm and immediately brought him back to life because whew boy.