Yeah ok lots of fandom sympathy for Loki in the thor3 elevator scene etc, but who stops to think about how ready Loki was to throw Thor away in thor1/avengers1?
Like Thor tries so fucking hard to win Loki back -- he offers his own life as recompense to any slights he may have committed against him; he begs his father to let him follow Loki down to Midgard when Loki reappears; he tries to convince him with reason, and affection, affirmation and then straight pleading for him to return home with him. He tries and tries and on every turn Loki rejects him -- until at last, Thor believes him. Loki does not want to be his brother; Loki hates him and has hated him and only wants to be as far away from him as possible.
Like I'm never gonna stop banging on about thor2 obviously bc thor2 is secretly my favourite, bc thor2 Thor is so obviously fucking hurt from the events of thor1 and avengers1 that he is an open, bleeding wound the whole movie. Loki has rejected him and their thousand years of brotherhood so thoroughly that Thor cannot fucking even talk about him by name. He cannot go see Loki bc Odin has forbidden it but also he prevaricates bc he thinks Loki doesn't want to see him.
He has so thoroughly accepted Loki's acquittal of their relationship that he does not once call Loki "brother" the entire fucking movie
He is unmoored. He is adrift. His heartache is so plainly written in every scene that it deserves its own line credit in the cast list.
And I think Loki understands that on some level. The guilt of hurting Thor so thoroughly when he has never wanted to hurt Thor is just stewing inside of him the whole time he's imprisoned. If Thor would just come and see him, maybe he could explain himself: he was angry, yes, but after there was something wrong with him; something about him wasn't wholely himself, and he can't explain it entirely, but he didn't mean what he said and what he did. It had been as if his every worst impulse and his every fleeting resentment had been made outsized and the only real thing about him. It was as if he wasn't able to see Thor for who he has known him to be. Of course Loki knows him; of course they have always been brothers. But the longer Thor stays away, the worse the guilt gets, and the closer it turns to anger again. Why won't Thor come to see him? Doesn't he know Loki? Couldn't he tell that there was something else besides Loki in those words, those actions? Could Thor have really believed that Loki would discard him so easily after everything?
And like, I think it's the guilt that makes Loki so compliant and eager and well behaved when Thor finally comes to retrieve him -- even under his customary thorniness. He's been restless for Thor's forgiveness -- for Thor's acknowledgment that they are still brothers, that Thor knows him and that he still loves him. Because if Loki cannot depend on Thor's unshakeable love for him, then what does he have? Everything else can be taken away from him -- his family, his titles, his power, his birthright -- but Thor's love is his to lose. He cannot lose it; he must have it back, bc if he can't have it back, then he truly has nothing, and it's not worth living is it? Having nothing, being nothing. Being no one's.
If Thor does not believe that Loki loves him anymore, then Loki will have to prove it to him-- he'll prove it with his life if he has to.
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