@juliabohemian every time I try to reblog your posts Tumblr won’t let me, but I know you don’t have me blocked so this is a strange conundrum indeed. Anyway you posted something that just circulated my dash and I spent a while making an addition, so here it is:
Not to compound your heartache, but I’ve been writing about this stuff since 2012 and it’s even worse than that.
The entire Thor narrative has brought Odin’s family full circle back to where they began in 2011′s first film. I mean this in terms of filial dynamics and discrete roles within a dysfunctional family structure. Not only is Loki still always the responsible party for everyone’s missteps and crimes, the “progress” that the family has made is actually a regression that reinforces his scapegoat role.
This is why when others are endlessly celebratory about the moment in Infinity War during which Loki refers to himself as “Odinson,” I cringe.
Because Loki WAS allowed a redemption, in Ragnarok, and then, in Infinity War: but one contingent upon Thor’s, and, by extension, Odin’s, idea of what connotes heroism (and, even though Mjolnir is long gone, “worthiness”). Loki became a hero when Loki stopped having his own thoughts about what to do after Hela’s invasion, when he stopped having ANY healthy notions of self-preservation, and when he followed THOR’S plan to defeat Hela. ONLY when Loki emulated Thor did Loki become a hero. The one thing that has always driven Loki to lack inner peace has been incessant negative comparison to Thor. So it’s only in an extremely toxic message of SELF-ERASURE that he completes the Thor films’ narrative of “healing” and “redemption.” Just like when Odin imprisoned both Hela and Loki under Asgard, to ritually erase them both from the fabric of his family tree, only FAR more subtle and insidious, by giving him NO OTHER OPTION FOR LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE BY HIS SOLE LIVING FAMILY MEMBER (Thor) EXCEPT TO “CHOOSE” TO STAND AND FIGHT (AND DIE) AT THOR’S SIDE.
Loki is only granted redemption when Loki IS NO LONGER LOKI.
And the freakiest part about this is that the broader Marvel audience has accepted this as “evidence” that Loki “was a hero all along” and it is the ONE THING that has made fans lighten up on hating him. The story stuffed Loki, who is a marvelous gray-amoral antihero, in a hero box--and not just ANY HERO BOX, but the box labeled “ultimate self-sacrifice in death, even against characterization and logic.”
--What was Loki in Thor 1? A passive receptacle for Thor’s warmongering and impulsivity, who must “shut up” and “know his place” at all times, whose plans to divert Thor from a disastrous place on the Throne were thinly veiled by the “heroes” as “treason” and “a whiny jealous younger brother’s petty vendetta.”
--What was Loki in The Dark World? A prisoner Odin and Thor genuinely hoped the world would forget, whose inconvenient truths about mirroring his father and brother’s warmongering on a protected (translate: already “owned”--claimed by Thor as “his” because of Jane Foster) territory of Asgard (Midgard) got him thrown in prison for life. Odin was angrier that Loki brought up these truths of Odin’s hypocrisy than he was that Loki tried to take Midgard as his own. Because unlike Thor, Odin couldn’t control Loki’s cognitions and beliefs. He never could. And when was Loki released from prison? Only when he became useful to Thor. A passive receptacle, being retrained as such, being told his mission basically to escape Thanos’s abuse with Midgard as a consolation prize was basically just a “childish tantrum” for which he should be gaslit and punished. And when was Loki forgiven? When did Thor weep for him, and say he’d take memory of his noble deeds to their father? ONLY when it appeared he had made a self-sacrifice in extremis, and was dying.
--What was Loki in Ragnarok? A traitor and a laughable clown. How dare he lay around eating grapes and watching theater that craftily reinvented his image to a previously disdainful populace? How dare he SURVIVE? Thor is angrier at Loki for surviving, seemingly, than he is relieved! Simply because Loki didn’t die for him, so of course, to Thor, it’s tantamount to another betrayal, it can’t be anything in between total self-effacement and total selfishness: it isn’t all about Thor, God forbid! Loki must be again a passive receptacle! How dare he cunningly outwit all of that lifelong conditioning to be silent and obeisant? So Thor acts juvenile, and emotionally strongarms Loki (yep, electrocution scene) and refuses to speak to him, and unfairly blames him for Hela’s return (WHEN IT’S ODIN WHO RAISED HELA TO BE A MONSTER AND THEN IMPRISONED HER! but if you’re groomed to be a narcissist by your father and emotionally dependent on your father’s praise then you can’t turn on your father, EVER) untilllll? Loki shows up with a ship from Sakaar and fights on Thor’s behalf.
“If you were here I’d give you a hug” translates to “If you would only abide by MY rules for what connotes a good person (cause after all Thor knows best, right? ‘That’s what heroes do!’) then I’d reward you for it.” And the whole movie ends with Loki going “I’m here” which is tantamount to saying “I YIELD.”
Ergo Odin remains the benevolent all-controlling patriarch.
Ergo Thor remains the petulant narcissist who always gets his way.
Ergo Frigga, dead, is more absent from stopping the toxicity than ever, because fridging!
Ergo, Loki remains the silent scapegoat.
Seven. Years. Of films. And counting.
