Dumb Details From the Loki Trailer I noticed but then got too serious about
First - apparently it’s not a trailer, so I guess we’ll get ‘Trailer 1′ later? ‘Exclusive Clip’ hardly seems accurate, but hey, I’m not Disney’s marketing division. I wouldn’t live in a shoebox if I was.
Dumb detail no. 1:
Owen Wilson’s jacket is...weird. Look closely.
And another shot:
Yeah...his jacket has a ‘reversed collar’. It’s a cut-out rather than cloth folding on top. Huh. What a strange design choice. What could it mean?
I’ve no idea, but that I watched the trailer enough times to notice this should concern you.
Detail No. 2
In this scene, we see what we can presume to be President Loki’s ‘Throne’. Notice the candy-canes. This is a Santa Claus throne, presumably from some mall Santa. This whole place might be in a mall, judging by the stuff in it.
But the Loki in this shot is not President Loki. Notice that he’s wearing brown pants, a thin brown tie, and the beige shirt he’s seen wearing in other parts of the trailer after he's apparently joined the TVA. President Loki wears black pants, a green vest and a wide green tie with a golden clip that resembles Loki’s little chevron he always has (more on that later).
So it would seem that Loki might meet President Loki here. President Loki might even be addressing him at the end of the trailer. It’s possible that his minions turn on him because there’s two Lokis and they don’t know which is the ‘imposter’.
Speaking of, there’s a minion with bicycle handlebars grafted to a football helmet here, likely meant to resemble Loki. I dig it. There’s also cans of food scattered among the rubbish here. Makes sense that food production is non-existent since everyone has resorted to wearing license plates and spoons. Love how tattered the whole aesthetic is.
This reminds me of the opening Michael Waldron’s script ‘Worst Guy of All Time’, which featured a similar post-apocalyptic setting after the ‘worst guy’ ruins everything and makes himself king of the ashes. That’s likely what’s happened here, but I hope that Loki isn’t anything like Logan Paul, who was the inspiration for that title character.
Ah, the mysterious female character watching a meteor shower WAY TOO CLOSE UP. But my eyes are drawn to one thing...
What is that oblong object with a shiny handle? Could it be...
A sword? I do love swords. Did you know there’s a bunch of pictures of me in the stock photos for ‘Fencing?’ That’s my cred for loving swords.
I suspect that this female character will be an amalgamation of Amora (shudder) and Sylvie and an alternate Loki of some kind. This sword is currently in her possession, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it or another timeline version of it becomes the Loki Show’s Loki′s weapon.
Loki has lacked a ‘weapon of his own’ in the MCU for quite some time. I mean, yes, he has his little knives, but they are many and disposable and something he chose for himself, rather than the two legendary weapons wielded by Odin and Thor, Gungnir and Mjolnir. In fact, throughout his appearances, Loki has seemed to want such a thing of his own - he briefly had Gungnir, and then the Gungnir-like scepter, and even tried to lift Mjolnir.
One might ask why Odin would’ve overlooked such an obvious show of favouritism. Why give Thor a storied weapon and leave Loki empty-handed? Heck, even Hela had the Necroblade.
In Thor 1, we might’ve assumed that the Casket of Ancient Winters was perhaps intended one day to be given to Loki, as it is shown with Mjolnir in the Vault and thus connected to it and the children who would inherit it. But in the comics, Odin did have another weapon of storied history put away for his second son: Gram the Sword.
It was locked for eons by Odin in a special vault which required five keys to be opened, and it was meant to be for Loki if he be worthy.[2] The five keys were infused by Odin with the powers of "journeys", "endurance", "secrets", "new beginnings", and "brotherhood", respectively.[3]
The sword, like everything else in comics, has a complicated history full of take-backs and twists, but let’s just leave it at ‘it’s a representation of Loki’s worthiness and belonging in the trifecta with Odin and Thor as a King of Asgard’. It gives him ‘equality’.
In the original mythology, it’s wielded by Sigurd to kill the dragon Fafnir, and the only relation it has to Loki is that Loki is partially responsible for Fafnir existing in the first place (my username is nod to this myth by the by. Sorry Ottär.) But hey, maybe that means we’re getting a dragon? The Fafnir would be very cool.
Or it could just be a bit of rebar in this mining quarry.
Then again...it appears somewhere else...
It’s easier to see in motion, but that’s a sword swinging on this person’s back.
So the hooded figure is this lady...shall we call her Amylkie? Does that mean she’s the antagonist of this show? Well...maybe, but I suspect the true antagonist is foreshadowed here -
So, what’s going on here? A young girl (Young Amylkie? Some other TVA prisoner that the guard is watching over? An oracle, A Norn, or a kid who wandered off from the tour group in a basilica somewhere?) She’s giving Mobius M. Mobius a...piece of chocolate. Maybe he saw a Dementor, I dunno. I suspect it’ll be a MacGuffin of some kind later. He looks pretty concerned here, which contrasts with his ‘another day at the office’ blaséness when dealing with Loki. But of course this is the eye-catcher:
So, Norse Mythology. It’s been Christiannized. You can thank Snorri Sturluson for that, but you can google all about him later. Let’s just say that he made many Norse figures into equivalents for Christian ones. Baldur is Jesus, pure and a sacrificial lamb who dies for a greater good. And the devil is...Loki. Something the Marvel comics and the MCU have continued.
Here we have a devil, dressed in green and with a distinct shape on his chest:
Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...
Ah. I’d say that cinches it. This is meant to be Loki. If you look at the devil’s hair, it also resembles Loki’s, being shoulder-length and black.
So, what’s devil-Loki doing? Laying an egg? Trying out a foot massager? For a second I thought it was a moon, but we see the moon over his left shoulder, amongst the stars. Which means this is - probably the Earth.
...Dammit; I live there.
So Earth is barren and being devoured by flames, likely caused by this Loki sitting atop of it (in a throne, no less). Aw gee, things look pretty bad, don’t they?
But wait - what’s that? Under the Earth (and, possibly, under the earth)?
It’s a plant. A shoot, to be exact.
Back to Ragnarok for a second. Ragnarok isn’t the apocalypse (something we see a lot of in this trailer - all of it seems to be exploring the end of days). Ragnarok is the fire meant to wipe out the old and fertilize the ground for the new. And after the gods have died, what happens? Well, Baldur emerges from Hel, one of the only surviving gods (hmm, seems him dying worked out, didn’t it?). He’s joined by Líf and Lífþrasir, who are the new first man and woman, who’s names mean ‘Life’ and who are pictured, usually, with plants and new life. It is they who are tasked who growing a new Yggdrasil after the destruction of the old. The previous first man and woman are Ask and Embla, meaning Ash Tree and Vine/Elm tree, so there’s a theme there.
So a new sprout, possibly a tree, growing out of the destruction of the old.
This fits with Loki’s role as understood in mythology. He checks the arrogance of the gods, including when they tried to achieve immortality (sorry, Baldur, nothing personal), and that keeps the gods at their best. After Loki is imprisoned, the gods become weak, unhelpful and foolish, and Yggdrasil starts to rot. Eventually Loki escapes and returns along with Surtur (who also resembles this figure) to burn it all to the ground. This is also referenced in Thor:Ragnarok, with Loki releasing Surtur in the Vault, a place of thematic importance to Loki and one that represents the hidden secrets and sins of Asgard). You could say Ragnarok continued into Infinity War, where Loki played an important part in aiding Thanos’ destruction, giving up the stone to protect his brother and essentially dooming the rest of the universe - but also ultimately leading to its salvation, even if, like Myth Loki, he wasn’t around to see it.
So, we see Amylkie literally start a fire in the trailer -
- in fact, this whole trailer is awash in flame -
It’s fire, fire everywhere and she’s setting them!
It’s possible Amylkie’s our big bad, but I think there’s a chance she’s either a red herring, or, much like how Loki ‘worked’ with Thanos in The Avengers, she is the pawn of a greater foe -
- a Loki bent on destruction, for some reason or other. The TVA is obviously aware that this is the case, and it seems like they might be trying to ‘fight fire with fire’ by enlisting one Loki to combat another. The villain could be President Loki, since there's evidence of 2 Lokis in that scene - or maybe that's one of many Lokis, and the Big Bad Loki is being played by Hugh Grant as Old Loki. In any case, it would appear that Loki will be coming face-to-face with the worst versions of himself, and many of them. And, if I’m right about this scene:
...Loki will likely eventually discover that even his ‘good’ timeline ended in the destruction of his people and home, plus his own gruesome and torturous death. Although I think the TVA will keep that from him, and just show him the happy parts in an effort to inspire ‘good behaviour’. Until Loki inevitably discovers the rest of how that timeline played out and realize he’s been lied to. I don’t imagine he’ll take that very well...
Damn, even our ‘hero’ Loki is burning stuff down! Does this mean that Loki is doomed, always meant to be an avatar of death and toasty destruction?
Well...let’s go back to that stained glass.
Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...
And there’s something else...the bottom of the Earth is being lit up, and not by fire. Light appears to be coming off this little plant.
What colour is this plant again? That’s right, green. Green is the colour of new life and growth and change and...hang on, I’ve heard that before, too...
Hang on hang on HANG ON... let me have a look at the shape again.
That’s...a letter. An L? For Loki? Like in the title sequence?
Wait...no, a different letter. An older letter. After all, Loki is old Norse. How do you spell his name in that again?
ᛚᛟᚲ ᛁ -
And ENHANCE on that third letter!
This, my friends, is a Kenaz/Kaunaz, or what would become 'K' in our alphabet. It is also known as the 'Loki Rune' (and the Ulcer Rune, for some reason. I suspect Odin understands why). It’s used to spell his name, but is also used on his own to represent him. Heck, it's even his Superman 'S' in the comics:
Runes are more than letters - they are symbols for concepts. So what else does it mean?
Primarly, it means ‘torch’.
And also ‘knowledge’ (ken). As well as ‘growth, change, the search for truth, decay, arrogance, elitism, feminine, kinship and creativity.’
...Okay, that’s a lot, but you have to admit it fits.
More specifically, it means ‘Mastery of the Fire’. As in, someone who has learned to tame fire so that it is helpful, not harmful. To bring light and, symbolically, knowledge.
There’s another way Loki’s been associated with fire - in the Wagner Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, the opera that inspired much the Thor films’ aesthetic and certainly their helmets, Loki is called ‘Loge’, which means ‘Fire’. He’s usually dressed to match, too -
Many trickster figures are associated with fire. They are usually called ‘Fire-bringers’ - See: Raven, Lucifer, Prometheus, etc. They are often complex figures with a foot in different worlds, but who nonetheless help mankind with the gift of ‘fire’ - although they usually pay for it, and tend to be self-destructive.
(Side note. Lucifer means light-bringer, which is what luciferase is named after. Because it glows. Which is helpful in labs. In case someone needed to know that.)
Moving from a destructive fire-starter to a fire-bringer seems like a great character arc for Loki to take, especially given his rehabilitation in pop culture, the comics, and even wider culture. Loki has gone from being seen as an evil, deviant, destructive character to one who’s seen as a patron of the arts and creativity, of stories rather than lies. Heck, some scholars of Norse Mythology even posit that he’s the closet thing to a protagonist Norse Mythology has, so I guess that backfired, Snorri!). Being dressed in green and with the sprout clearly also being stylized after his Kaunaz, there’s foreshadowing that he’ll be capable of growing good things even out of ashes.
So, to sum up: Being ‘Satan’ sounds pretty bad, but with a little letter re-arranging like we see in the title sequence, you can be...
...practically a saint. Maybe even a saviour.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
