thinking about loki (major infinity war spoilers obvs)
okay fam, i know we’re upset, i know everything feels awful. but now that i’ve seen the movie twice, i think there are some bright sides we need to consider about the beginning of infinity war.
this is actually the tenderest, most declarative thor/loki scene in the mcu’s history and an astonishing amount of what loki would term sentiment.
everything we were afraid of in the run-up to infinity war—that loki might be made to be “evil,” that they could erase the ground gained for them in ragnarok, or that loki betrays thor, or tries to—none of that happens. loki dies a hero’s death for thor:
- loki is unequivocally on thor’s side and on asgard’s. he’s able to abide thor being tortured for .2 seconds before asking thanos to stop. this is someone who has fought thor himself, plotted against him, and once dropped him out of the sky in a glass sphere. this time around, loki could not watch thor be hurt
- we’ve been hoping for this, and it happened: loki does everything here for thor. thanos literally says, the tesseract or your brother’s head, i expect you have a preference, and loki produces the tesseract. he didn’t have to, he could have let thor die and struck some beneficial bargain for himself, but he could not deal with seeing thor suffer
- “we have a hulk” -- turning a line once used against loki into a declaration of allegiance to a side: we
- “i assure you brother, the sun will shine on us again” just think about these words, because i think about them every few minutes
- loki GETS AWAY. he easily could have left the ship, or stayed concealed, used some sort of magic to preserve himself (if thor can survive in space, so can loki). but he comes back for what he has to know is a suicide mission. if anyone knows what thanos is capable of, it’s loki. but he COMES BACK because thor is at their mercy. there’s no other reason; everyone else is dead; he has to know he can’t beat thanos with a tiny fucking knife. but he either thinks maybe he can buy them some time, and free thor, or at least he can make this last declarative sacrifice as a way of apologizing to thor for everything and letting thor know how he truly feels
- the way loki looks over at thor as he pauses and names himself odinson and of both asgard and jotunheim. his face in that moment says everything: this is who i am. i love you. goodbye. this is like the russo brothers took our wildest fanfic dreams and FILMED THEM.
- don’t even get me started on thor’s reaction to watching loki do all of these things; that’s another post entirely. thor then spends the rest of infinity war in raw numbed grieving shock, every action primed to let him die if it doesn’t succeed so that he can join his brother. if you’re wondering how thor took it
i know a lot of us are feeling like thor now—grieving, angry, upset. but i think we need to appreciate that rather than character assassination, loki gets to be his best and truest self in this scene. and he gets to be prideful and chaotic and strong and brave and tricky and in the end, none of his baser instincts guide him save the oldest one: he loves thor more than anyone.
as much as this hurt, and it should hurt and it’s meant to hurt, it’s also the best way this scene could have been played, if it had to happen at all.
(and maybe it won’t happen once time is reversed in the future la la la)