Well this took ice ages to get back to, and I apologize for that. (Also, this got long.)
Itâs mainly the âIâll tell him he has a chance to make me proud and be king (implying itâll be here) if heâs good enough, but he doesnât, and nothing he does can change that so the efforts he makes are pointless; also, Iâll allow racism against Jotuns to the point of considering them monsters to pervade Asgard (Iâll even confirm it for my sons) while knowing that heâs Jotunâ aspect of Odinâs plan for Loki that I take issue with. Strategic, maybe, but really cold. Also, that plan basically assumed that an infant he knows very little about would not have certain traitsâsuch as being curious, highly intelligent, and independent-mindedâthat could seriously mess things up. Which happened. Loki turned out far too smart and independent to be an obedient puppet. I get what Odin wanted, but this wasâŠnot the best way to go about it.
Odin and Loki do have some similarities, like the ones you listed. I suspect Loki actually learned some of those traits from Odin in an attempt to please him. But in other ways theyâre very different.
Odin is the orchestrator of the system that holds Asgard on top of the Nine Realms, whereas Loki is the outsider who the system grinds down to keep everything working smoothly and maintain the status quo. As the one most harshly affected (of those on Asgard), heâs the one whoâs faced with the systemâs deep flaws, so heâs the one who points them out. Heâs the agent of change. Odin is in the opposite positionâhe benefits by keeping things the way they have been. Their societyâs different perception of them works in a similar way: no one mentions or seems to be aware of Odinâs wrongdoings, but they vilify Loki for actions that pale in comparison.
Also, Loki has the capacity to be self-sacrificing, while Odinâs never shown that (that weâve seen). And Odin is more cruelâhe smirks right after âyour birthright was to dieââwhere Loki doesnât visibly take pleasure causing people pain unless heâs under the Scepterâs influence (when he was ranting at Natasha). The difference in how they handle Thorâs feelings for JaneâOdin basically saying âyou shouldnât be with her because sheâs mortal and not worth youâ, with Loki going towards âyou probably shouldnât be with her because sheâll die and break your heartââis pretty striking as well; Loki seems to understand emotions better. (Not that itâd be hard with Odin as the point of comparison, lol.)
Odin isnât seen questioning what Bor told him about the Dark Elves until he canât ignore it, but Lokiâs been asking questions and finding his own answers for a while, as demonstrated in the earlier gifs. Odin canât seem to consider another way of thinking (he refuses to discuss alternative options in TDW, and in both Thor 1 heâs outraged when Thor goes against his orders), where Loki appears to understand othersâ thoughts and feelings well enough to predict them (he knew Sif/Heimdall/the W3 were going to betray him in advance). Odin is more violent; he conquered and held down the entire Nine Realms, while Loki needed to undergo a psychological breakdown (or get tortured/coerced/mind-warped) to go for large-scale bloodshed, and that didnât get nearly as bad as Odinâs did.
I think Tom Hiddleston talked about it in the interviews from TDWâhe said something about how Odin couldnât understand Loki in part because they were so different, while Odin and Thor were more similar. Unfortunately I canât find that interview just now I started looking but was too lazy to check more than the first few articles.
I definitely see where thatâs coming from: Thor, like Odin, is at the top of Asgardâs system and to some degree blind to its flaws (though I think he was beginning to see them mid-TDW); theyâre both extremely stubborn with their goals; they both have issues with controlling their temper (Odin gets shouty, Thor starts getting violent); they both tend towards self-righteousness (that I recall, we never see Odin doubt himself, and Thor only does during his banishment). They can also both be verbally harsh, especially with Loki (for Thor, see his conversation with Loki in the prison cell in TDW; I donât think Odin needs an example). Their society generally overlooks both their flaws as well.
Obviously Thor does have his differences, in that he displays far more kindness than Odin (when he brings a mug to that coffee shop owner in the first movie), and he makes friends and allies very easily, but the similarities are there.
