Okay this face makes me want to rant. People joke constantly about how Loki was lying to Thor about everything, even the fact that he loves his brother, because he always thirsted for the throne. Aside the fact that he SAID “I never wanted the throne, I only ever wanted to be your equal” to Thor in the heat of candid emotion, look at this face.
He makes this face WHEN NO ONE IS LOOKING.
It is in EARNEST. When the audience sees Loki making faces in moments like THIS, be they evil faces or sad faces, the writer and director are using a rhetorical device called DRAMATIC IRONY: the audience has insight into character feelings, motives, and actions that no other character has. There are three moments of Dramatic Irony in Thor:
1) When Loki facepalms at Thor wanting to go to Jotunheim and succeeding in convincing the Warriors 3 to join him.
2) THIS moment, in this gif, and also when Thor is cast out and Loki reacts behind Odin’s back in shock and hurt—as well as in nervous vigilance when Mjolnir is cast out as well.
3) Much later, after things have escalated, when Loki lies to Thor that Odin is dead, turns away, and we see him smirking triumphantly that Thor has bought the lie.
—Loki did not plan for it to go this far.
—Loki is contrite that it went this far.
—Loki is also unwilling to stop its trajectory (although he DOES try once, before Odin silences him).
Almost anything else about events leading up to this is arguable, except that Loki a) loves Thor, b) is jealous of Thor, c) is conflicted about his own role in the family dynamic. And he did NOT want Thor banished. And he DID NOT anticipate that Odin would banish Thor. He just wanted Thor DISCREDITED as a leader to Odin so that Loki would have the time to prove HIMSELF a worthy heir (even though, as he himself SAID, it wasn’t even a title he ultimately wanted).
I find that people constantly argue that Loki planned for everything that happened to Thor in the first half of the movie. I deeply believe that this is inaccurate. I believe that Loki was an excellent deceiver but that his Achilles’s Heel has ALWAYS been to get in over his head. He thought the three Jotun guards would mess up Thor’s coronation. He thought Thor and Odin would argue and Odin would berate Thor for being “arrogant and reckless” (Loki’s words). He did not care about Aesir collateral, although he didn’t anticipate that either (because he thought Odin would get there faster, and didn’t realize Odin was tired and headed for an Odinsleep). And that’s it. He DIDN’T expect Thor to ever REACH Jotunheim (again, he overestimated Odin’s capacity to come stop them when he tipped off the guard), and I even argue he didn’t want Thor to even TRY (because he already got what he wanted, Odin is already furious at Thor, and also, because Loki facepalms, again, when NO ONE IS LOOKING, in EXASPERATION, he doesn’t triumphantly smirk the way he does after he’s lied to Thor that Odin is dead). And when they got there, and battled, and Fandral was wounded, and Odin took them all home, he DIDN’T expect Odin to banish Thor OR to cast Mjolnir out with him. THEN it happened. THEN the confession of Loki’s Jotun heritage happened. THEN Loki decided he’d go after Mjolnir and keep Thor exiled indefinitely. THEN Sif and the W3 disobeyed his mandate. THEN Loki panicked and sent the Destroyer to kill Thor. You see how things were not entirely planned out to the last detail, or rather they were, but anytime something on the chessboard shifted, so did Loki? Things snowballed.
People need to remember two facts:
a) Loki gets in over his head, because he’s playful and likes the thrill of danger.
b) Loki changes his plans 180 degrees with every new contingency. He is resourceful and capricious.
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