#th: disability

[tyrannuspitch]

you know what. the fact that odin has to go into the odinsleep (effectively a coma in which he - and all of asgard - is incredibly vulnerable) at regular internals all throughout thor and loki's childhood is a really underappreciated bit of backstory!

like... thor and loki have effectively grown up with a chronically (well. episodically, but consistently) ill parent. that's going to have a profound effect on them. it's not something i've experienced myself, so i'm just guessing, really, but some thoughts on what those effects might be...?

a sense of extreme instability in their attachment to odin, especially when they're very young. no wonder they both have abandonment issues!

before they're old enough to understand, they're going to experience it as: father is here but he is refusing to engage with us, and no-one is sure when he will again. have i done something wrong? am i just not important enough? this might be exacerbated by people trying to tell them that it's "meant to happen", "for a higher purpose", "under control", etc.

once they ARE old enough to understand, they will naturally see it as very dangerous and frightening. their father is the universe's miraculous, invulnerable protector... until he isn't. what if it comes on unexpectedly, somewhere dangerous, somewhere no-one can find him? what if a war breaks out? what if he never wakes up?

the odinsleep is linked to odin's powers and odin's responsibilities to the kingdom. he exerts himself until he falls into a coma. For Them. it's a kind of martyrdom, and it must induce a lot of survivor's guilt in his family.

there's a lot of cognitive dissonance around vulnerability, especially odin's vulnerability. the royal family must always present a strong and united front to the world, and questioning or undermining odin, even in private, can have severe repercussions. and yet odin regularly enters health crises that they can't not respond to. yet more unprocessed and uncommunicated emotions in the house of odin.

the odinsleep seems to be the brink of death, so in a way, odin dies over and over - and his family brace themselves for grief over and over. it must make it harder to admit any flaw in him, much less the vast extent of his abuse, when they're constantly reminded of what the loss would be like.

but at the same time... there might be some peace in his absence. relief at the withdrawal of a tyrant. which will only cause further guilt and anxiety in them all, and maybe lead to them policing each other harder to compensate...

every time odin goes into the odinsleep, someone else has to rule. at first, this will be frigga - which means, when they were young, thor and loki would lose most of their contact with both parents at regular intervals. which might contribute to their closeness with each other, as the only stable connection. and later on, it would probably mean thor had to be regent (to the realm at its most vulnerable!) - so he would lose a parent figure and very suddenly have to grow up (and possibly leave loki behind)...

it's not 100% clear... but it seems likely that the odinsleep is something the next king will eventually inherit. thor's future promises untold power and untold sacrifice, and always has. a king is powerful, and a king is exposed. this complicates thor and loki's power struggle in a really interesting way! it's not just: let me be in charge. it's also: let me take the danger, i know how to handle it better than you...

hmmm. there is probably much more to be said here but these are. some initial thoughts

[tyrannuspitch]

thinking about stammering.

loki stammers once in canon (that i'm aware of), in an extremely disorienting and traumatic situation (learning about his heritage.) obviously it's natural human thing, almost everyone does it now and then, but. it's very rare within the stylised dialogue of these movies. and if you did want to make a Thing out of it... there are two ways you could go.

loki naturally has a stammer which he's worked to cover up. this fits with his anxiety and his apparent reputation as an outsider/weakling/coward, and it gives the "silvertongue" thing an interesting edge, both as a backhanded compliment and as a calculated, determined survival technique. of course, only slipping up once means he's trained himself out of it very successfully... but he does have an incredibly ambitious/obsessive side, so i don't think that rules out the possibility.

stammering is actually something he's been taught. politicians (at least in the modern uk, idk about elsewhere) are specifically trained to stammer on single-syllable words when they hesitate, rather than to pause or say "um", in order to appear more articulate and to dominate the conversation. (because repeating whole words looks less vulnerable than just making noises.) (and this IS what loki's doing. he says "I- I- I-" but not "m-m-monster".) of course, it's always preferable not to hesitate at all, and loki mostly doesn't. but the idea of part of loki's *political training* coming out during the stolen relic scene is just... speaking to me.

wait a second. as with almost every time i present u guys with two possibilities... it could still be a bit of both. (train yourself out of your stammer, but if you absolutely MUST stammer, do it like this...)

anyway. i'm not entirely committing to either, they're just fun ideas to rotate in one's mind.

[tyrannuspitch]

also just the fact that thor is definitely picking up on loki's self-loathing&destuction when no-one else has the context for it, so he reacts very defensively to bruce calling loki crazy, and then has to go oh. wait. you meant the murders.

like... when thor calls loki mad, which he does pretty sparingly and more often euphemistically, he means loki is sick and/or wounded. dangerous, yes, but ultimately, suffering. broken in a way that means not meant to be this way, and therefore potentially fixable. but when everyone else calls loki mad, they just mean he's a monster. broken as in not meant to be. :(

[tyrannuspitch]

the fun thing about loki being ambiguously weakling-coded but having no recognisable disability by asgardian standards in his asgardian guise is that you can just give him the most random ailments for the fun of it. like is he sick? no. but is he miscellaneously sickly? of course.

ailments i would give that man purely for the aesthetic:

motion sickness (canon <3)

fainting / dizzy spells

-> fainting from blood loss more easily than others, so ppl say (unreasonably) that he's fainting at the *sight* of blood

nosebleeds

-> nosebleeds that make him faint

migraines

bruises easily / slow healing

weak immune system

literally just has the worst possible time with any injury or illness he happens to have

plus physical-ish manifestations of mental illness like insomnia, racing heartbeat, loss of appetite, etc.

to be clear there is absolutely a time and a place for sensible well-thought out headcanons like "very susceptible to heat stroke". but this is not that. this is pure coughing up blood for no reason territory

[tyrannuspitch]

oh god hang on.

who showed you this power -> who controls the would-be king -> give up this poisonous dream. come home

as fun as it is to explore the implication that loki is Always under someone else's control... i think what THOR thinks he's saying is that it's the *promise of power* and whoever offers it that controls and corrupts loki.

in thor's view, lust for power is one of the roots of loki's madness - ie, loki's total loss of self-control. so anyone who offers him power can easily destabilise and manipulate him for their own ends. SO. if loki manages to stop looking for power then he might be able "break free" and return to his "true", unpoisoned self. which just so happens to be a loyal second prince and younger son with no ambitions of his own...

loki looking for power (and autonomy.) = not free.

loki subordinate and obedient to asgard specifically = free. the only acceptable state.

thor my beloved... what the fuck <3

[tyrannuspitch]

oh hang on a second. not only is loki morally grey, a double agent, adopted, genderweird, bisexual, ethnically planetarily ambiguous, and, of course, a liar... he also suffers from Ambiguous Disorder. #ambiguousswag.

[tyrannuspitch]

random overthinking thought i need to purge from my brain:

whatever spell makes loki look asgardian probably doesn't just change his skin tone and maybe suppress his ice magic / change his temperature / etc. it probably also limited his growth in childhood. because like... typical adult jotuns stand at, what, 10'? 12'? so just having a baby who is currently very small by jotun standards, even if you know there is already a medical condition (ie alien dwarfism or something) suppressing his growth... that still doesn't guarantee that he won't end up like. 7 or 8 foot. which is still pretty damn conspicuous on asgard. so whether he ever actually threatened to grow that tall or not... they probably had measures in place to prevent it.

[tyrannuspitch]

okay, but from thor’s perspective, loki being the antagonist of thor 2011 really just comes out of fucking nowhere doesn’t it?

the last three significant interactions he has with loki before his banishment are:

loki reassuring him that he’s right about jotunheim in theory but advising him to be cautious, just like all thor’s other friends

loki taking initiative on jotunheim in a way that somewhat undermines thor’s authority but only to prioritise safety/survival of the whole group, thor included. (not out of character!) (and this doesn’t even do anything visible for loki’s ego!)

loki trying to intervene in thor and odin’s last argument on thor’s side, but being shouted down before he can say anything

the context of loki being the one to let the jotuns in might eventually contextualise the first one as manipulation, but at the time? all thor can see here is a loyal brother who loves and respects him but is overly cautious. he doesn’t notice the tension. 

and then, after thor is banished and loki goes through a series of revelations on asgard, thor suddenly sees:

loki lying to him about odin being dead to keep him in exile forever

loki trying to kill him and, possibly, anyone who defends him

loki trying to destroy jotunheim

all of which seems like a complete reversal: the last thor heard, loki wanted him to stay on asgard, loki wanted to keep his brother safe, and loki wanted to avoid war with jotunheim.

loki doesn’t offer thor much explanation, either. when they finally see each other face to face again, loki says several contradictory things in quick succession:

he wants to prove to odin that he’s the correct choice for the throne

he doesn’t want the throne, he just wants to be thor’s equal

he wants to prove himself to odin, who he calls his father, as the superior son/brother

and yet he isn’t thor’s brother (which thor has exactly ZERO context for)

there’s definitely missing context here. but there’s also just... a genuine lack of clarity. loki is clearly in emotional turmoil, and while thor is more concerned with protecting others from him, he can see that loki isn’t acting entirely rationally.

odin will fill thor in on the fact that loki is adopted after the fact. but loki doesn’t manage to explain what he means by feeling like he never was thor’s equal, and no-one else is going to explain that one. i think odin sees it, but he won’t admit to it. he won’t accept any responsibility there.

at first, thor tried to apologise. he accepted that loki’s anger at him must have some kind of rational grounds, that if his brother hated him this much, there must be a reason. but i think actually seeing and hearing loki in the climax takes him backwards. he can’t understand this anger or this response. he decides it must be “madness”, and i think he means that literally. thor can understand his brother being angry at him for something he’s done, but not this level of desperate, universal rage. and blaming odin doesn’t even cross his mind. 

the thing is, loki’s behaviour in the climax... well, idk if you can quite call it “rational”. but it IS more logical and predictable than thor realises. it is partially a result of conditioning. there is an explanation. and a goal. and it doesn’t come from nowhere; there are centuries of repressed emotions underneath it.

but thor doesn’t see the whole emotional landscape behind this. he finds out two things he didn’t know already, and that’s it:

loki was adopted and reacted badly to finding out

loki was more jealous / resentful than he realised to begin with, and may or may not have played a part in his banishment

he can’t make sense of this. even that jealousy, which is a pretty big betrayal, doesn’t logically lead into the climax. the only way to put this together is to assume that loki literally just “lost his mind” in reaction to finding out he was adopted.

and like... idk. i don’t think thor is entirely unsympathetic. he spends most of the avengers trying to bring loki “to his senses”. but it doesn’t help him understand their relationship. it does the opposite.

if thor finds out about the hidden depths of loki’s jealousy without recognising how they’ve genuinely been treated unequally, and if he hears from odin that loki completely freaked out, enraged and “twisting odin’s words”, in reaction to the news he was adopted, while odin tried to reassure him... at best, thor is going to think that loki is more sensitive / highly strung than he realised. that loki sees insults where there are none. that loki drove himself “mad” over an imagined inferior status and his own petty, baseless insecurity. and i do think that’s where we end up in the avengers. thor straight up doesn’t believe loki when he tries to tell him what’s wrong. thor tries to be kind, and loki tries to make himself heard, but there is a communication gap that they just never manage to cross.