#re tom. his opinions. and pre-post ragnarok. but i mean

[iamanartichoke]

I haven't watched any of the Loki episodes yet (I'm procrastinating) but I keep seeing vague stuff about some big chasm between how Tom sees Loki and how apparently a lot of fans see Loki. Could you give me some specifics? Other than Loki mentioning his interest in sexes other than female I've heard nothing that could cause this kind of discourse.

I don't know if I'm the best person to ask, as I know others have articulated it much better than I can, and who may feel more strongly than I do that their Loki and Tom's Loki don't align so much anymore. Not tagging anyone bc of reasons (but feel free to comment/reblog if you wish to talk about it).

But, I do know a decent amount, so I'll proceed to write five thousand words try.

My understanding overall, is that Tom has always spoken very eloquently about Loki as a complex, fractured character who was functioning from a place of deep pain as opposed to any real villainy or evil.

(cut for length)

He was never saying any of it as an excuse for Loki's actions but as an explanation of where Loki was coming from and how he ended up in that place to start with. This mostly refers to the 2011-2013 era Loki, before the "reboot." Because so many fans viewed Loki the same way - as complex, as broken, as coming from a place of pain - there was validation, I suppose, in knowing that the actor who played the character (and whose performance was largely responsible for the character being so enigmatic and appealing in the first place) shared this view.

After the reboot with TR, Tom seemed to lean more heavily on the "god of mischief" aspect of Loki - he'd often say that his job was to have fun bc Loki was always mischievously having fun. While Loki had always been funny in a snarky, sardonic kind of way, and the "mischief" he'd get into was always just for fun and relatively harmless, after TR he was more silly-funny or slapstick funny ("funny") and his mischief was framed as a little more malicious (such as using magic to trick and then stab Thor when they were children).

So it seemed like a big departure from the previous Loki that Tom always spoke so eloquently about, and I think it's notable that when promoting TR, Tom didn't really delve into the psychology of Loki much at all when he'd talk about the character - just the "fun." So there was that. At the time, people figured it was bc he had very little control or say in what the director chose to do with his character.

Now, though, Tom has a lot more creative control (although I don't think he actually has all that much, certainly not as much as some people think he does, tbh), but while he's once again talking about Loki's psychology and identity issues and trauma and whatnot as context and backstory, he also still seems to be leaning into the "god of mischief" parts and the silly-funny parts. The show furthermore has yet to address what Loki experienced with Thanos in between Thor 2011 and Avengers, has failed to address his identity crisis after discovering he is Jotun (a throwaway 'I was adopted' line doesn't really count), etc.

So there's a lot that Tom has spoken about in Loki's story that is very much not being included in the series. Furthermore, while Tom discusses Loki's complexity when doing press, he has also said things that imply he has an idea of humiliation being a core aspect of Loki, or that Loki is someone who constantly needs to be knocked down a few pegs, or that he thinks he's profound but actually isn't, etc. I know in the past he's also made comments about Loki's mental health and how Loki might go about recovering from it, but his perspective on that whole area didn't ring true to a lot of Loki fans who also suffer from mental health issues.

So all of these things together, to some fans, makes it seem like Tom's current idea of Loki - whether it's bc he wants to do something new, or has changed as an actor, or whatever the case may be - is still a departure from the 2011-2013 era Loki and, thus, does not align with their own interpretation of Loki. Hence, a chasm appears.

^^ All of this is for context, which I tried to give as objectively as possible. Now, as far as discourse about it goes, I can't speak to that very much. Nobody that I know is angry at Tom or "betrayed" by Tom or feeling anything negative toward Tom as a person. They are, however, feeling that they may need to re-evaluate how much of Tom's interpretation they put stock into as they engage with the character, and kinda where to go from here. But I can't emphasize enough that no one acts like this is Tom's responsibility or that Tom somehow did them dirty. I also can't emphasize enough that there's nothing wrong with Tom's version and he genuinely seems to be enjoying what they've created here, and that's fabulous. There's no wank about that, at least not that I've seen from my fandom corner.

So that's the situation from the tumblr side. However, because Tom has been the "face" of the Loki series all this time, and because he's been hyped up as having so much say and influence and ideas to contribute, a lot of people got the idea that the Loki of the series would be exactly the Loki that Tom wanted to play. And when, inevitably, the show went in directions that people didn't like (my understanding is that this is mostly coming down to shipping nonsense, which I'm not even going to touch), Tom was blamed. And that's where this "discourse" is coming from, as far as I know. I don't have any real first hand facts, but people are saying that Tom's been getting death threats on social media from fans who are outraged about the Sylvie thing, or outraged about how the bisexual component is being handled, or whatever. Since this is pretty much par for the course in fandoms, I believe it.

But it seems like the shipping nonsense has gotten all tangled up in the dissatisfaction in the aspects of Loki's story that aren't being told, and in the difference in Tom's comments about Loki now vs back then, and it just ends up being a recipe for discourse, wank, and drama. So to answer your question, the chasm between Tom's Loki and some fans' Loki is the result of ... *gestures at massive wall of text* this.