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On the Loki Series

Okay this is going to be one massive vent-post stink-fest if you liked the show don't read this. I'm serious, this is two hours of me writing and researching reasons to hate the show.

My grievances under the cut, organized into sections. Also this is stream of conscious so I'm sorry if it's all over the place. I tried to put alt text for images, but Tumblr ate my post, and I didn't want to do it again- they're not entirely necessary for understanding the post anyway.

Spoilers for the Loki show, Infinity War, and Endgame.

The Gay Agenda

Genderfluidity

Okay so there are actually two issues with this one. I'll start with the semantics- It's said here that Loki's "sex" is fluid. Granted, I don't see a category for "gender", but I think in the queer community we've struggled to try to educate people on the difference between gender and sex, because of gender presentation. I'm not going to sit here and pretend to be 100% educated on my queer history, but I am going to sit here and remind the world about the variety of people that can be found in the queer community- specifically the amount of transgender experiences that you can find. There are people who are trans and don't want sex reassignment surgery, and there are people who do! There are non-binary people who don't present androgynously, and there are those that do! Labelling his "sex" as fluid means that, biologically, he can change his gender. Yeah, that's true- we've seen it in the comics!

Here, Loki's trying to be a new person. She even says, flat out:

There's a new chapter starting, and I'm not going to be who I was. I won't as you to be, either. But I'm still me. I'm always me. You can take that how you like-- see me how you want to. I can't control that.

This is what genderfluid representation looks like. Not writing that someone can change their sex, but writing also that they can change their gender presentation. For all anyone knows at this point in time, this female Loki could still have a penis- it doesn't matter. She's presenting as a woman.

Back to the show, Loki never once does anything feminine, in the same manner that Sylvie never does anything masculine. The most masculine thing about her... is she never wears a dress? I guess? Whereas the male Loki is kept in a dress shirt and tie for more than half the season. I kept wondering when he was going to get a wardrobe change, and it just never came. Considering that he has the power of conjuring and changing his appearance whenever he pleases, he could've and should've made himself different. Sylvie at one point in the show even says "I wish I could wear something else" and Loki has that power, and doesn't do anything about it. Nevermind my opinion on the romance right now (I'll get to that), but if he's trying to swoon her in that moment, why doesn't he fulfill the request? Does he still think it's a manipulation tactic? What would she gain from a new shirt??

Getting back to my point: Disney treated his genderfluidity like a bonus "fun fact" and made zero effort to incorporate it into the show.

Bisexuality

Right now there's a big shift in the queer community where bisexuality is treated as an umbrella term by many, coined the "Bi Umbrella". Bisexuality, by definition, is "the attraction to two or more genders." Pansexuality is "the attraction regardless of gender." Omnisexuality is "attraction to all sexes with regard to gender." In the show, Loki and Sylvie get to talking about their romance life. Sylvie says, "Do you have any interests in Princesses? Or Princes?" And Loki's response is, "A bit of both, I suspect much like yourself." Yeah, that can be a win- for anything under the bi umbrella, that is. It's a general off-hand comment that's said and nothing more.

Okay! Great! We've confirmed Loki can be interested in men. Cue the Loki/Mobius shippers going absolutely ballistic. That's about it. Now, I understand that the Gods probably don't have a conception of sexuality- that's a reasonable way to write them. But not once have I seen any variation of Loki interested in a man in that show. The closest thing I can think of is his fling with the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnorok, and his quips against some of the other Avengers in the other movies. Under the same vein, he's had quips and moments with various women. But in the show itself, there's no representation of his bisexuality other than what he says.

He falls in love with a woman who is his counterpart, in a way that I was really hoping was platonic and sibling-like until she kissed him. Whether that kiss was romantic or a distraction, if Loki truly didn't feel some romance towards her, it wouldn't have worked, point-blank. He's the God of Trickery and Mischief, and he should've known better, unless he fell in love with her. No, I am not even going to tackle the selfcest argument or the narcissism argument, because to him, she was an entirely separate entity, and I'm going to get back to this later.

Loki's Characterization

Whoo. I want you all to think, think really hard, to the first Avengers film.

Do you guys remember this Loki? The one that kinda went crazy with the Tesseract, sent an alien army to take over New York City, caused multiple atrocities? We all remember that scene where Loki is smiling as he removes someone's eyeball in order to break into their vault, right? Okay, good.

The Loki that is arrested in Episode 1 is that Loki. Coming off the heels of his first defeat as a major villain, he takes the Tesseract and runs. He's right now filled with rage, and still power. He believes that he can do whatever he wants. Then, he's arrested. Despite him being a power-hungry God:

A collar somehow disables his abilities, and yet he maintains a human form instead of a Jötunn one (because if you remember, he's biologically an ice giant).

He's consistently belittled and treated as 'just another variant'.

He goes through a therapy session, that was much needed, but causes him to breakdown. He is faced with that eye scene and says he didn't want to do it.

He has an existential crisis, which is understandable. What's not understandable is what happens after: he's depicted as a fool, a coward, and a fraud. On numerous occasions, he does the "wrong" or "stupid" thing (read: chasing after Sylvie, getting himself and Sylvie stuck on a doomed planet, becoming drunk and getting them exposed on the train). He's shown as someone reckless, instead of the man who calculated everything he could in that movie prior. He grows a heart in one, maybe two episodes. He grows a heart seemingly immediately after seeing what harm his actions do, trying to trust Mobius and Sylvie and anyone else who will look twice at him.

I also wanna note at this time that I don't know if the director hated Loki, and I don't blame any of this on Hiddleston? Unless either of them were active writers. Then I'd blame them.

The other thing is uh, where are his powers? He has illusion magic, projection spells, teleportation (which isn't even shown until the last episode), conjuring, and I mentioned already that he can change appearances. Versus Sylvie, who also has this magic, is somehow restrained to just enchantment- which Loki, coincidentally, doesn't know how to do. Despite watching the Tesseract do it for him and probably knowing exactly how it works, he can't mimic it, which is odd.

Timeline Inconsistencies

Most of these are just nitpicking at the writing. I'm going to do it anyway.

Dr. Strange

Okay this is more than a peeve more than anything.

Dr. Stephen Strange : I went forward in time... to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict. Peter Quill : How many did you see? Dr. Stephen Strange : Fourteen million six hundred and five. Tony Stark : How many did we win? Dr. Stephen Strange : ...One.

If there's only one timeline, then Dr. Strange is seeing nexus events and somehow interpreting them as possible timelines? Is that it? How does he see all these possibilities if there's only one way this can go? How does he later tell Tony that there's only one where they win, and Tony has to sacrifice himself? I have many questions.

The Avengers' Role

If, when watching Loki's trial, you went, "hey, wait, he's right!" then you already know what I'm going to say.

Let's look at the sacred timeline, right? There's one way that it's supposed to go, and that one way involves time travel to retrieve the stones and defeat Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. So... By that definition, what happens in Endgame where they fail to get the Tesseract is supposed to happen? Because I would think Captain America fighting himself would be a Nexus event, if I'm honest. And if that was supposed to happen, then Loki's escape was also supposed to happen, because the group later went to a different part of time to retrieve the infinity stone, and that didn't cause a Nexus event. They go to return the stone from that point in time that they got it in, too. It just... It doesn't make sense.

Sylvie

I have only one question. In the show, it depicts Sylvie as a woman as a child. But we've seen child Loki. So either Loki did flip-flop between genders as a child, or Sylvie grew up as a woman. If it's option a, then her Nexus event would've been changing her gender, and maybe preferring it over being a male? Which is kinda fucked up when you think about it. If it's option b, then her Nexus event was just being born a woman, which is also fucked up. The show never really explains what her Nexus event was, just that she was playing with a toy ship and suddenly arrested, and I really don't think that toy ship would've caused a butterfly effect so severe to warrant needing to deal with a variant.

So really, the question is, what the hell was her Nexus event?? Was she just needed to be displaced from time, to cause her vengeance, to cause her to wind up at the feet of He Who Remains? That's kind of underwhelming and stupid if that's the case.

Sylvie's Characterization

Okay I'm going to preface this with I liked Sylvie's concept. I kinda really liked the idea of a female Loki! The problem was that her character was handled very poorly. I'm just going to do a little list.

She's a romantic interest and a plot-leader

Sylvie was a very excellent character that turned into "man follows woman". Loki follows her for no reason other than she's supposed to be a mirror of himself that's a woman. It's seen rather quickly that he drools over her, since he's singing to her on the train. After that, he continues to talk about her and trust in her, going as far as to tell the other Lokis that she's the only one he trusts- which is rather foolish, if he knows himself he shouldn't trust any variation of himself. In fact, the only Loki that tries to help them is Classic Loki, who has all my respect, and it makes sense because he's older and wiser. It boils down to experience.

Other than Loki's romantic interest in her, she's the leader of the plot. She is the one that wants to take down the TVA. The way that she directs the plot has you believing that the show isn't about Loki, it's about Sylvie, who just happens to be a Loki.

She's a plot device

I put this under a separate bullet because I think there's a difference between a plot-leader and a plot device. As a plot-leader, she drives the plot, drives the revenge, gives Loki reason to what he does. As a plot device, she's used to show Loki does have feelings! Look he can fall in love! Look he trusts her! Look he's not a monster, forget about what he did to New York. He's changing so rapidly because the Power of Love, baby!

She's the only one serious about their mission for a good portion of the season, and after Loki finally gets on board, she betrays him. So the lesson is... Loki can't trust anyone??

Not to mention she has her own crisis in that final episode. If he knew she was coming, then what was her life? What was it all for? To get to that moment only to hear that the man you want to kill wants you to do it. To get to the end to hear that no matter what you do, he still wins. Her character arc was thrown away.

She's a genderbent version of Loki, rather than what Loki would've turned into

This goes back to what I said in the timeline portion of this vent post (because let's be honest, that's kinda what this is). Let's say all Lokis start at the same point, and any time a Loki diverged from the path set forth and impacted the surrounding environment, that made a Loki Variant. (I include that second point because Classic Loki played the part well, it wasn't until he tries to impact Earth with his return that he's taken into TVA custody.)

She should've shared experiences with Loki. Loki and Sylvie have a conversation about their childhoods, both of which are vastly different. Anything in her childhood should have been a nexus event. She's treated as an entirely separate entity rather than a version of Loki, with her own history and life. She's not Loki, she's Sylvie. It really boils down to that.

Problematic Christian Symbolism

This one is, again, more of a pet peeve, really, but uh...

I'm going to cite this post in specific. And I wanna make it clear I'm on the side of this person, they're right, it happened.

And I'm going to slowly look at the writers and wonder why characters from Norse mythology have a giant scene depicting a Christian reference.

Let me present my very little bare minimum research on the subject that the writers could've also done:

There is an equivalent to Adam and Eve called Ask and Embla. However, Ask and Embla are both born from a tree, rather than Eve from Adam's rib. The same article also punctuates that Ask and Embla could've originated from what I can only describe as colonialization- where certain people will go into different religions, write a mythos in the context of that religion that is very Christian in origin, and then publish that as a new myth. There's proof of this happening time and time again with all sorts of religions. Thanks, Christianity (not).

I found an essay comparing the original origin stories in the Norse and Christian mythology. In the original story, supposedly the armpit sweat of an evil titan produces the first man and woman, who go on to kill him, and then their lineage goes on to be the vikings. They are then blessed with different abilities by three gods, Odin, Hœnir/Hönir, and Lodur. So. No apple.

Another source, which I suspect to be through a Christian lense, talks about fruits (apples) that are kept in a box by a woman, and given to Gods at a young age in order for them to retain their immortality. Again, nothing evil about apples.

So... My point is that there's a 100% Christian/Christian-influenced reference in a show about Norse mythos. Sure, they have Loki sing a bit in Asguardian, and reference a saying in his home one (1) time, but maybe there was a better way to demonstrate the entire final episode than a simple Adam and Eve that reinforces "women are evil and ate the apple"?? Especially since women weren't treated like that in Viking society??

Conclusion

Loki is a character with anger, betrayal, fear, and distrust, which is revolved in 0.2 seconds with a therapy session and a man who calls him a baby and forces him to call himself weak and a fraud. He is then shown up numerous times by a "better", genderbent version of himself, who ultimately turns out to be "evil" and betrays Loki. Also, he gains romantic feelings for her.

The entire season felt like Tom Hiddleston cosplaying Loki. Thank you and goodnight.

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