#MetaAnalysisForTheWin

[worstloki]

I recently started watching the mcu with my friend and we've gotten to GOTG and I'm trying to explain that in the gap between Thor 1 and Avengers, Loki was being tortured by Thanos, but I can't explain it properly, because just because english is my first language, doesnt mean I can speak properly. Could you please help me?

Here’s some diagrams? Hopefully they could help so wordy explanation aren’t required :)

Link 1 (x)

He's basically in general bad condition every time we see him in/around the 1-2 year time period after he fell from the Bifrost, hence the theorizing (+based off interviews, Loki's time after the attempted suicide was not good to him and he appears most manic in the starting scene rather than any time later.)

Then there’s this stuff where he spends this entire scene looking exhausted and his back gives way twice:

also, we see him being tortured on-screen,

(Link to a post which talks about this scene especially ^^ but also the DIALOGUE and way he speaks through the movie)

Also, with Gamora/Nebula it’s explicitly mentioned that body parts were being replaced? They had to fight to prove their worth? Thanos was torturing his “children” do we really expect any less from randoms?

[worstloki]

there's a gif from thor 2 or avengers in which thor is gripping loki by the neck. i forgot which movie it was from but i remember loki screaming, "Who put me there" at thor. i remember seeing a gif where loki is smiling (at thor presumably) but there are tears in his eyes. do you remember that scene? why was he crying but smiling at the same time?

Yep that scene is in Thor two - and it can be interpreted loads of ways but I see it as Loki not having properly processed Frigga’s death and just generally being angry at everything (including himself) - you need to keep in mind that Loki was very clearly venting moments ago and that he isn’t in the best headspace because he’s still got a whole pile of unresolved issues

and he also hasn’t had any outlet for his frustration at anything for the last year - on top of being in isolation for what we presume is a year - so yeah I think he was riling Thor up and hoping for an opportunity to yell and express anger in return but because of the situation and the fact that anytime he feels anything it’s invalidated he tries to make sure the anger is reciprocated so he has a reason 

of course, it works, for a bit, until Thor flips the script as if Loki didn’t already feel guilty XD he also only starts getting teary-eyed after the mention of Frigga I believe? Which is also when Loki starts yelling in return...

you’ll note that Loki’s response to the trust thing ends up being to gradually raise his voice when he says “Trust? Was that her last expression? TruST? WHEN YOU LET HER DIE?”  and then Thor yells back and then Loki yells back 

BUT! Thor is learning! He’s growing as a person! He backs down from the fight, even if it’s only with the excuse of Frigga not wanting them to fight. It’s manipulation and Loki recognizes that. I think on Loki's side Thor's response actually just went ahead and confirmed that the entire family is emotionally abusive. Like, what? Thor’s always up for a fight... unless Loki is around for a purpose??

It’s also worth noting that Loki kinda just lets Thor throw him around?? Which is a pretty big indicator that he was looking for a fight?? So, anyways, character development, remember way back when that was a thing? Thor backs down from a fight! Good for him!

IMO the smile is because Loki thinks Thor’s picked up on the fact that he was venting and needed an excuse to yell (”mother wouldn’t want us to fight”) and his response with humour (because that’s always a great coping mechanism) was an attempt to gloss over the fact that Loki still feels hurt and angry and guilty about Frigga’s death and his last conversation with her and the whole mess that was the few years before that.

[worstloki]

I do t want to be That person but, as someone who hates Tony with a passion, he is shown as being pretty evil at first... I mean he is a misogynist and a rich asshole that inherited dad's money and company and then went on to earn even more money by allowing wars to happen on places he didn't care about. That's why I don't like him, he does a lot of good but in my opinion never enough to cover up what he did in the past... Idk just felt the need to interact sorry

Nope, don't apologise: We do get to see what Tony was like before he had his moral compass start resetting, but because they’re shown as only a few instances and others are mentioned flippantly half of his backstory is negligible and unknown to the audience. He’s framed as a hero because what is shown of his narrative starts with him moving on from his drinking and misogynism and disregard of what his weapon business means. While it is the most reasonably comprehensive character arc in the MCU, Tony simply goes from being someone who was vaguely bad in the past, to making up for their mistakes and trying to go good to balance things out. Whatever noble (likely) or selfish (less likely) reasons Tony had for becoming a hero, the part that is emphasised to the audience is that he became ‘good’, and that ‘good’ is more important than the bad, no matter what it was... an argument easily made by restricting information about what exactly the ‘bad’ actions in the past were, and showing all the ‘good’.

A change of heart is how quite a few superheroes join the good side, but more often than not the audience does not get to see their initial bad actions. Being framed as heroes makes it easier for the audience to accept the character as morally good, which is fine, but it also results in the poor and ill-practiced execution of characters that are established as bad and then become good. 

This of course ignores more complex character changes such as Loki’s where him going ‘evil’ is constantly brought up and the audience is reminded of his time as a villain because he is framed as one despite his actions in Avengers 1 not solely being his own; with the fact that Loki started out as ‘good’ but then acted badly before being ‘bad’ by the audience/in-universe and then either continuing or reverting to ‘good’. But since the audience has seen Loki at his worst, and has actually seen the severity of his ‘bad’ actions, with less proof of his good self, it is not until his better actions shown to the audience start to even out that he is considered not strictly ‘bad’ anymore.

[worstloki]

Tag List - 

#Language! #L! = swearing

#TheBadKindOfDeath #TBKOD = graphic character death, graphic mentions of suicide

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#FoodTalk #FT = food is a major topic in this post, or repeated mention of medicine

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[worstloki]

Loki starts this scene reasonable.

But then remember when Mobius put on a video of Frigga's death when he should know Loki never saw the actual thing and still reacted badly? Because when Loki watches the thing and gets concerned Mobius doesn't try to ease concerns or reanswer the question he goes on to blame Loki for something that would've happened, sure, but he didn't live through yet.

Mobius tries to insist that this Loki is at fault for future actions which haven't yet happened to this Loki, and he does it by not differentiating between the 'sacred timeline' Loki being a different person who had been doing the only thing he was meant to/allowed to by the TVA themselves.

He then skips over the context of the scenarios, latching only onto parts where Loki talks back to Frigga (removing what Frigga had been saying to Loki to cause him to yell in the cell), the seconds of her death (Loki has no knowledge of Jane being there or protected, just that Frigga died) and then, when Loki gets further worried/upset he emphasizes it with this, insisting it "has to [happen]":

he honestly deserves a stab in the back for this line alone in my humble opinion

not to mention these were also after Mobius explicitly knows that Loki has a thing for making his own choices

and then flippant attitude as he leaves because this was a fun little talk, shouldn't mean anything serious ya know, :)

so *ahem* while here my take on this is the TVA are being presented as a neutral party to the audience, who are trying to present themselves as good (different to actually doing good), which is something Loki's done before too, which is why he scoffs and is all skeptical about them to start off.

You can note that this:

"I don't enjoy hurting people, I do it because I have to, because I've had to. Because it's part of the illusion. It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. A desperate play for control."

Just as easily could be applied to what Mobius was doing trying to coax Loki into the idea that there is only one predetermined path you can follow while in a timeline, by repeating that he is constantly fated to cause those around him who he cares for to suffer.

It's possible he was trying to inspire fear to get him to agree to the job he has in mind (because that's what this entire pitch of not-killing-him is for, isn't it? to get his help?) because he's painting it as there being no other way to achieve anything similar to free will.

And the animated part of the episode about the lizards controlling the timelines, though it's phrased as "protect and preserve" so I think it'd be awfully fitting if Loki didn't fall for that and rebelled, after all, Odin opened Thor 1 priding the realm through a grand speech on protecting and preserving the peace between the realms. Similar authoritarian rhetoric and all.

Gaslighting bullshit on top of gaslight bullshit

Just so we’re clear, what Mobius is doing with Loki is not “therapy”. It’s psychological torture.

[worstloki]

^^^ 

[worstloki]

(x)

so basically the both of them plead to their parents for their lives, difference being that Loki would not fight with his father while Agatha was not given a choice.

No, you cannot.

[worstloki]

no torture actually 😋😋😋

This is just someone who was happily traipsing through sanctuary and decided to make a deal of his own free will where Thanos handed over an Infinity Stone and kindly asked him to express-post the Tesseract back 🥰🥰🥰

And this entire scene is just hot girl sh*t 😍😍😍

there’s also never the mind stone glowing when in use to support any claims of it influencing Loki’s behaviour, or any proof it influences that at all because it never happened when the Avengers were in the room 😌😌😌

(/s)

[worstloki]

you also get people seeing Loki's reactions and then never looking into what caused them or validating that he was hurt too, (though in Thor 1/Thor 3 the narrative does this well).

I think its you i sent an ask about the femal gaze a while back and IM GOING FERAL AGAIN

The absolute enormity of my love for the female tropes that Loki is put in is unbelievable

“You weren’t born to be king Loki. You were born to cause pain suffering and death. Thats how it is, that’s how it was, that’s how it will be. All so that others can achieve their best versions of themselves”

Gahhhhhhhh this is basically the narrative directly adressing the female characters. All the dead girlfriends and sisters and mothers. All the potential of female characters wasted for a male lead to shine. All the female characters used as tools to prop up the male characters’ character development.

I am going berserk. Are they realizing what theyre doing?? Is this intentional, cuz i hope it is (i know its not) cuz if it WAS intentional, it would be the most gratifying thing ever, on both on a textual and meta level.

On a textual level: Like, basically acknowledging the way Loki was treated his entire childhood and really up to the point of the events of Thor 1. The way he was thought of as weak, a liar, less than, for engaging in behaviors and having a characterization of a female character. All the way from being belittled for using magic in training, but them still relying on his magic in battle (its only good if it benefits me, the male coded character and useless and not to be trusted if its for YOUR benefit, how dare you exist outside of my needs), to Loki literally standing iver Thor’s shoulder in Jotunheim and trying to diffuse a situation!!! only to be ignored!!! And im sure i could find so many other examples.

Meta: AND if we accept this interpretation, then it puts things in a new perspective from a new lens! Lokis arc in Thor 1 being the arc of of the female character (as really a great symbol for the female perspective irl): getting lied to aboht having the same chance as the male counterparts to succeed, being belittled and abused but putting up with it because you think its worth it for your chance at success, finding out that the game was rigged ALL ALONG. And from then on, through this new lens, i would go as far as to say that Lokis “villain arc” in Thor 1 is just female coded character putting their foot down and saying enough is enough. It captures the absolute fuckin breakdown you go though when you realise you NEVER HAD A CHANCE and the anger of helplessness and being trappen in an unwanted, not-enough future. Its a female rebellion arc. One that ive enever actually seen but definitely needed, taht we all needed.

And dont even get me started on the parasocial nature of this kind of acknowledgment: i think there was just this very instinctual recognition of that in Lokis fans (female and queer of all kinds) because thats just such a female and queer experience. His realization, the lies, the illusion of choice, the anger and resentment and need for justice, the attempt to do right by yourself, GETTING PUNISHED FOR IT BOTH IN UNIVERSE AND BY THE NARRATIVE THAT INFLUENCES AUDIENCE PERCEPTION.

This is why there are so many so called Loki apologists. We can relate not just to his mental instability as people who suffer from all kinds of insecurities and metal illnesses, but we can relate to the core of his character, to his motivation, on such a PAINFUL level. And of course this has all been said before but ive never seen it outright framed in such a way that acknowledges that you could take Loki out and put a female character in and all of the sudden the narrative messenge spins on its head because things start making sense in a way they didnt before (mostly because Loki is male presenting and having a male presenting character be so heavily female and queer coded is hard for our brainwashed brain to REALLY acknowledge). “You just like him cuz hes hot” indeed

Theres tons of things i loved and tons of things i really didnt, and while i agree that Loki is kinda ooc throughout, i iust feels like this line connects this loki to a loki as early as Thor1 loki, even if they didn’t actually intend to do that, but ill take what i can get

AND THAT QUOTE! THAT FUCKING QUOTE! Could be a subtle nod to all of this, to the fact that hes IS coded like that, the malicious way its used by Mobius a nod to the fact that thats what female and female characters get told (narratively, not outright)

Anyways sorry for ranting in ur ask box, i just really want people to see this and interact with it bcs its my fave thing ever and i wanna have a convo abt it with yalls

First of all thank you so much for sending me such an interesting ask! I really enjoyed reading it!

You haven't send me another ask about female gaze before this. I only have one other ask from you in my inbox which was sent during my hiatus and it's speculations about the tv show(I will answer it shortly after this one).

I can't agree more with what you said. Honestly what you wrote is so perfect and complete I have barely anything to add to it.

I've always said that Loki is female and/or queer coded. Generally members of any oppressed group through history can see themselves in Loki. In fact you reminded me of a post, interestingly named "A Different Story", that I'd written three years ago right after IW was released. It was written out of my anger and heartbreak. I honestly had forgotten so much of what I had written. But I read it again. And I think so much of it is similar to your opinion.

why Loki? Loki’s popularity among fans was so unexpected, that it even surprised Marvel. So why Loki? Why he was loved even more than heroes?

Why do we care so much?

Because we see ourselves in Loki. We, who felt different, were different, and were alone because of it. We, who knew how it felt to be ridiculed, rejected, vilified and despite all our efforts, never accepted, never loved for who we are. We, who hide all our hurt and pain under a mask but at some point we just couldn’t take it anymore and exploded. So we identified with Loki. Even when we didn’t agree with what he did, we still understood him, loved him. The characterization and Tom’s performance was so strong that kept our love in spite of everything. In a manner Loki was more real for us than any other hero. He wasn’t a beloved and popular person, or a celebrity. He wasn’t even considered a good and loyal person by his close companions because of his differences. And he was desperate to be seen for his capabilities, to be loved and accepted and respected for who he was and we could relate. We could relate because his story was like our stories in real life.

Are they realizing what they're doing with Loki's arc and how it's similar to female arcs? I believe they do. To some extent. Why do you think that they hated Loki's popularity so much? That a female/queer and villain coded character is more popular amongst fans, specially female fans, than their heavily masculine coded heroes?

To a number of fans and audience, especially male audience with beliefs from a toxic masculinity culture this seemed threatening that a queer coded and/or feminine coded villain gets more female fans than heavily masculine coded heroes. They hated him. And they started to belittle his fans, by implying that Loki was only popular because of Tom or because he is pretty! That Loki’s fans are a bunch of fools that only lust after him for his looks. It seems they deliberately don’t want to understand.

Why do you think they fridged Loki in IW, a trope that is always used for women in movies, to give Thor a reason for his revenge?(I can't believe I've written some of the lines of the tv show three years before and I didn't remember them!:)) )

I don’t care how epic and heartbreaking his death was because Loki didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to die as a plot device to give Thor sth to avenge. We didn’t deserve this. We deserved to see the god of mischief in all his trickster glory. “No more resurrection this time” was directed to us, not Thor. They were telling us that you can rage and try to fight, but at the end, you are nothing, you will be broken like a ragdoll so the real hero can be heroic. The story is not about you, it was never about you. You are just a tragedy, you don’t deserve happiness, you can only be redeemed by sacrificing yourself.

They did to Loki in movies, what Mobius told him. That he didn't born to be a king, he was a way for heroes to achieve the best version of themselves. And they literally told him in the show that story was never about him.

I just hope that, considering the show's director is a woman, she sees this and gives Loki an arc deserving of him, and us who identify with Loki and see ourselves in him.

I hope the show ends the way I ended that post.

Because what can we do when a narrator erases us from their story? We erase the narrator from our story. I don’t want a cautionary tale in my life. I prefer different stories.

[crunchy-star]

*helps get medical care for lightning strike but realises I can't as loki fans are immune to psychological torture so much we became immune to Thor's lightning *

Yes, and being a frost giant means that electricity would heat up his lungs, so he has twice as tolerance than previously thought.

And since Thor is the God of thunder and lightning, the disk was powerful enough to take him out, so loki is twice as tolerant to lightning than the go-*gets skewered by giant spike*

*slams hands on imaginary oak desk* Hi yes hello this is your daily reminder that Loki was tortured and mind controlled by Thano- *muffled talking as a floating yam drags me back to bed*

[worstloki]

#thor and loki were good bros and did not casually attempt to murder each other all their lives i will not accept this as canon marvel!!! #loki and thor might've had a fraught relationship but there is no denying that they love each other #also loki 100% had a hero crush on his big bro #also thor would never give up on his little bro not in a million years that hangar scene in raganrok is terrible #threatening complete abandonment and essentially scaring your lil' bro into living up to your expectations by using torture????? #NO ( @acertifiedmoron )

one snake story told by someone who hasn't been accurate in everything else he's said about Loki does not a lifetime of murder attempts make.

people will say MCU Loki's been trying to kill Thor his whole life and I'll be like WHERE??????????

[worstloki]

I can accept that Mobius and Loki by episode 2 have A Dynamic going that works for them and involves wringing the other's hair extensively (even if the stakes are - at constant reminders - at Loki's threat of death, and developed off-screen, apparently) even if I personally read it more as forced chemistry bc they're working together.

But episode 1 pretty explicitly had Mobius trying to provoke Loki. And then episode 4 pretty explicitly had Mobius torturing Loki in the Time Cell.

It's made pretty explicit through the show that Variants are dehumanized by the TVA (code numbers, "cosmic mistake", pruning on short notice, "your variant pet", your/my variant, the way their clothes are stripped, "while he marinates", B-15's reaction, etc.) and that episode involves... inflicting psychological AND physical trauma to manipulate the victim to say what the perpetrator wants. Again.

Loki even calls that out when he says "threatening interrogation tactics"!!! So I see the potential in having two people try to out-manipulate each other and growing close but...

I personally wouldn't refer to Mobius and Loki as friends even by the end of the show considering the only interactions post-Time-Cell are Mobius being skeptical at having to trust the word of a Loki, the lines I assume are an apology: "You could be whoever, whatever you wanna be, even someone good. I mean, just in case anyone ever told you different", Loki being distraught at his death, Loki going "Mobius!" when he finds out he's alive, Loki saying 'or so good' when Sylvie says 'Mobius isn't so bad', Mobius joking that Loki 'got away in the end' (???), Loki asking what Mobius will do back at the TVA and him saying he's going to burn it to the ground and thanking Loki for 'the spark', "well, see you later loki" *loki goes in for a hug and says Thank You My Friend while Mobius says 'you're my favourite' at Sylvie, Loki in the last scene finding him... because it's hardly a minute of interactions between them, with all even those scenes broken up by Sylvie (who spends longer with and gets along better with Reformed Mobius than Loki, since they instantly hit it off).

With Loki's past being rebooted (?) to fit having always been a Bad Guy I still wouldn't refer to either scene as therapy (unless as a joke, which, yeah), or to Mobius as any constant form of a supportive figure simply because unlike most other characters he gives him the benefit of the doubt, albeit doubtfully in that too, and basically always to encourage him to do something he himself wants.

I do agree that Loki was in a position where he could've grown from the trust he was given, though I would argue the show was inconsistent enough with displaying change in general that it would have had to have happened off-screen, probably between episodes 1 and 2 (though he's still got the same Glorious Purpose thing going for him and I would consider a lot of established Thor 1 and Avengers 1 themes rebooted despite the show's supposed focus on identity.)

People will really claim Mobius spent the whole show positively affirming Loki and being a pillar of support like a therapist with their whole chest

[worstloki]

It probably also helps that the torture is explicitly shown on-screen multiple times and that Bucky doesn’t get to retain even the image of self-ownership because everyone knows from the start that he’s contracted and working for someone.

Also, his recovery is an ongoing process spanning from The Winter Soldier to FATWS that’s acknowledged and treated as such. Even when he’s back at the hands of someone who misused him he’s framed as a victim at the hands of villains, often not supposed to speak, while Loki speaking with the Other had him sassing back.

The trailers for Falcon and Winter Soldier were also full of humor and action, and the show turned out to be different (Buckyi's trauma was shown and how he deals with those 70 years of killing) So I think Loki's trauma will be shown too. But they will show the trauma in the show, not in the trailer.

I really really hope you’re right and honestly the latest episode(ep. 4) of TFATWS gave me so much hope about Loki series. If they do what they did in TFATWS, it would be fantastic.

[worstloki]

(Via @nikkoliferous)

Not me realising that his attitude change to full-blown dumderhead occurs after they’ve obtained the Tesseract 😔

Loki: I’m alive again!

Thor: LOKI! (threat)

[worstloki]

Gaslighting bullshit on top of gaslight bullshit

Just so we’re clear, what Mobius is doing with Loki is not “therapy”. It’s psychological torture.

[lokislunatic]

Ask worstloki a question#''why was he crying but smiling at the same time?'' anon that was a wonderful question and i'm so glad you gave context#because loki does it quite often#he gets overwhelmed and plays it off#which is a response that makes complete sense when your feelings have been ignored and invalidated for ages now#MetaAnalysisForTheWin#MAFTW#thank you for the ask!

there's a gif from thor 2 or avengers in which thor is gripping loki by the neck. i forgot which movie it was from but i remember loki screaming, "Who put me there" at thor. i remember seeing a gif where loki is smiling (at thor presumably) but there are tears in his eyes. do you remember that scene? why was he crying but smiling at the same time?

Yep that scene is in Thor two - and it can be interpreted loads of ways but I see it as Loki not having properly processed Frigga’s death and just generally being angry at everything (including himself) - you need to keep in mind that Loki was very clearly venting moments ago and that he isn’t in the best headspace because he’s still got a whole pile of unresolved issues

and he also hasn’t had any outlet for his frustration at anything for the last year - on top of being in isolation for what we presume is a year - so yeah I think he was riling Thor up and hoping for an opportunity to yell and express anger in return but because of the situation and the fact that anytime he feels anything it’s invalidated he tries to make sure the anger is reciprocated so he has a reason 

of course, it works, for a bit, until Thor flips the script as if Loki didn’t already feel guilty XD he also only starts getting teary-eyed after the mention of Frigga I believe? Which is also when Loki starts yelling in return...

you’ll note that Loki’s response to the trust thing ends up being to gradually raise his voice when he says “Trust? Was that her last expression? TruST? WHEN YOU LET HER DIE?”  and then Thor yells back and then Loki yells back 

BUT! Thor is learning! He’s growing as a person! He backs down from the fight, even if it’s only with the excuse of Frigga not wanting them to fight. It’s manipulation and Loki recognizes that. I think on Loki's side Thor's response actually just went ahead and confirmed that the entire family is emotionally abusive. Like, what? Thor’s always up for a fight... unless Loki is around for a purpose??

It’s also worth noting that Loki kinda just lets Thor throw him around?? Which is a pretty big indicator that he was looking for a fight?? So, anyways, character development, remember way back when that was a thing? Thor backs down from a fight! Good for him!

IMO the smile is because Loki thinks Thor’s picked up on the fact that he was venting and needed an excuse to yell (”mother wouldn’t want us to fight”) and his response with humour (because that’s always a great coping mechanism) was an attempt to gloss over the fact that Loki still feels hurt and angry and guilty about Frigga’s death and his last conversation with her and the whole mess that was the few years before that.