Lessons from Film

Read part 1, including Loki’s backstory and motivations established in ‘Thor’

Read part 2, covering ‘Avengers’ and ‘Thor: The Dark World’

“Thor: Ragnarok” (2017)

After finishing second to his older brother in ‘Thor’, failing spectacularly in his bid to rule Earth in ‘Avengers’, and retroactively faking his death in ‘Dark World’, Loki returns to Asgard in Taika Waititi’s 2017’s film ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ to pose as Odin and eat grapes until Thor exposes him as a fraud. After Thor forces Loki to help locate their father, the brothers find Odin who soon passes into the afterlife after bidding farewell to both as his sons.

Stranded on an alien planet after losing his adoptive father, Loki is further rattled by the potential loss of Thor, and refuses to be left behind.

Thor’s Indifference

Loki’s relationship with his brother undergoes a profound shift when Thor finally seems to give up on waiting for Loki’s better nature to triumph. As Tom Hiddleston observed “The idea that Thor might be indifferent to Loki is troubling for him… it’s an interesting development.”

Thor’s new indifference troubles Loki because his identity within the family as been ‘My family has rejected me; my brother doesn’t love me, I hate my brother’. But now Thor is pushing Loki away, which changes the dynamic between the brothers.

Loki is visibly disturbed by Thor’s willingness to give him up as a brother because their sibling rivalry has long defined Loki’s identity and place within the family. Loki’s deep need for his brother bubbles right to the surface in ‘Ragnarok’, resulting in Loki giving in to Thor’s request to play ‘Get Help’. When Thor seems to say goodbye to him, Loki falls right back into an old childhood game, no matter how humiliating, to maintain a connection with this brother.

Not the Only Black Sheep of the Family

Without Frigga and now without Odin, Loki is forced to re-think his relationship with Thor since his brother is the only real family he has left.

But Thor isn’t Loki’s only sibling. After Odin’s death, the brothers are forced to confront another scorned family member, Odin’s firstborn, Hela (Cate Blanchett).

Now the brothers have bigger problems — their sister, the enormously powerful goddess of death. With Hela’s arrival, Loki loses his claim as the most shunned member of the dysfunctional royal family of Asgard. Compared to Odin simply lying to Loki about his parentage, he’s treated Hela much worse — he’s locked her locked away.

Up against Hela’s indomitable powers – Hela crushes Thor’s hammer with a single hand and a smile – and wanting to return home to Asgard, Loki keeps close to Thor while they are stranded on an alien planet. He is also eventually humbled into working Hulk, his former enemy from ‘Avengers’.

Feeling insecure about Thor’s loyalty to him as a brother, relieved of the role of antagonist, and with the fate of Asgard at stake, Loki is finally forced to choose a side. As he did in ‘Thor: The Dark World’, Loki decides to fight alongside his brother and the two unite against a common enemy. Loki’s refusal to be abandoned and his reluctance to let go of his brother helps him round the corner of his redemption arc.

“Avengers: Infinity War” (2019)

In Anthony Russo’s 2019 film, Loki completes his redemption arc by dying in a failed attempt to kill Thanos in order to free Thor. With a meaningful look at Thor, Loki calls himself ‘Odinson’, affirming their bond as brothers and demonstrating his new understanding of family.

“Loki” (2021)

Redemption arcs usually conclude in an honorable death, which Loki achieves in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’. But the 2021 Disney+ series undoes this redemption in order to re-open Loki’s character arc to emotionally power the series. The Disney+ Loki is a character who is still grappling with his need for the love of his family, torn by guilt over Frigga’s death, and back to his old tricks.

Conclusion: Great Villains Are Born of Tragic Circumstances

Tom Hiddleston has said of Loki: “I had to find his smile. His innate love of anarchy and chaos. I had to make his pain real. Great villains are born from tragic circumstances. They become dangerous when their vulnerability and their pain hardens into vengeance.”

Despite all of his internal rage and resentment towards Odin and Thor, Loki can’t let go of his family, particularly his mother, Frigga. Loki’s enduring, agonizing love for his family is what causes his pain… but also redeems him.

Bonus Feature:

Check out DarthxErik’s music video featuring the Imagine Dragon song ‘Monster’ (cover by Runaground) that inspired this blog series

What are your opinions about Loki? Tell me in the comments!

Read part 1, including Loki’s backstory and motivations established in ‘Thor’

Read part 3 covering Loki’s character arc in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, plus a quick peek at ‘Loki’ the Disney+ series

“Avengers” (2012)

In Joss Wheden’s 2012 film ‘Avengers’ Loki becomes the outright villain — an Asgardian pirate with daddy and brother issues galore. Loki now plays at being a tyrant trying to dominate Earth in order to get attention, which unfortunately results in loss of a lot of human life when his forces invade New York. But if we keep focused on his character development, we can see how heartbroken, lost, and lonely he is.

Fulfilling his narrative duty as the antagonist, Loki continues his role as a character foil for Thor in this film. A such, Loki is destined to fail in order to advance Thor’s positive change character arc. But Loki gains interesting character dimensions while losing spectacularly in his first run as a super-villain.

After having lost the titles of most favored son and heir to Thor at the end of ‘Thor’ (2011), Loki resorts to selfishness and power plays on Earth in ‘Avengers’. He still craves his father’s approval and equal status with his brother so badly that he’s willing to cast himself as Thor’s enemy. For Loki, it’s better to invade Thor’s limelight as the villain than be ignored and written off as a failed son.

“Thor: The Dark World” (2013)

Loki shines in Alan Taylor’s 2013 film ‘Thor: The Dark World’, and nearly steals the show from Thor. As originally scripted by Marvel, this film was intended to be Loki’s last appearance in the MCU, but fans simply wouldn’t allow him to die (see ‘Saved By Test Audiences’ subsection below).

At the beginning of ‘Dark World’, Loki doesn’t get a warm welcome at home. He is apprehended for his crimes and the loss of life on Earth at the end of ‘Avengers’ and imprisoned on Asgard. When he arrives in chains to be sentenced by Odin, Loki clicks his chained heels together in a mock salute towards Odin. He then says to Frigga in ironic tone: “Hello, mother. Have I made you proud?” When Loki asserts himself to his father by saying that a throne is his birthright, Odin savagely reminds him that his birthright was to die as the abandoned son of Odin’s vanquished enemy. Unaffected by the loss of human life on Earth, it’s clear that family dynamics and being harshly chastised by Odin are still driving Loki to yield to his darkest emotions.

Frigga

But Loki’s adoptive mother is not fooled by his bravado. Frigga merely smiles when Loki says she’s not his mother, because she knows that he’s lying… to himself. Seeing through Loki’s tough-guy exterior, Frigga gets right to the heart about what motivates Loki’s contradictory behavior:

“Always so perceptive, about everyone but yourself.”

Even the silver-tongued Loki doesn’t have a response when he hears the bare truth about himself from the one he loves most – his mother.

Like Frigga and Thor, we still see the good in Loki and how much he still loves his family… even against his will. Odin and Thor attend Frigga’s funeral and then are able to carry on with their duties. The only family member shown openly grieving is Loki.

He is visibly tormented by his mother’s death and destroys himself and the furniture in his prison cell. And all this intense agony over the death of the woman he had earlier refused to acknowledge as his mother. (Loki will later confront his guilt over his part in Frigga’s death in the first episode of the Disney+ series.) 

Loki’s emotional volatility and deep love for his family is on display again and a pattern emerges. What un-glues Loki emotionally, and unleashes both his destructive and loving instincts, are the painful interactions with his family.

The Need to Be Needed

After Thor is forced to ask for Loki’s help to escape Asgard with Thor’s love interest, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Loki’s spirits recover and he’s mostly back to his usual charming, cheeky self. He takes a refreshing jab at Captain America’s righteousness and provides lively commentary on Thor’s flying abilities.

Released from prison and knowing that his brother needs him, Loki shines when his unconventional, out-of-left-field ideas are channeled towards helping Thor. Although Frigga and Jane Foster don’t let him off hook for his crimes on Earth, Loki doesn’t dwell on his failures. When Jane Foster slaps him across the face, he smiles and earnestly responds with ‘Ooo, I like her’.

Insight into Thor

Loki proves the truth in Frigga’s words when she called him perceptive. Nobody knows Thor’s weaknesses better than Loki. Although he enjoys poking fun at Thor’s ego, Loki is also capable of remarkable insight and compassion towards his brother.

Loki can see Thor’s sincere love for Jane but pities him, knowing that Thor will outlive her if she doesn’t die from the dark aether first. Thor refuses to accept his inevitable loss of Jane, so Loki presses his point, brutally but honestly:

“You’ll never be ready. The only woman whose love you prize will be snatched from you.”

The brothers then clash over responsibility for Frigga’s death. Loki is clearly upset at Thor for not defending Frigga, and for locking him in a prison cell so Loki couldn’t defend her.  

Saved by Test Audiences

Hiddleston’s nuanced performance has Loki balanced on a knife’s edge between his resentment towards his brother and redemption. Tom Hiddleston observes that Marvel’s original ending for ‘Thor: The Dark World’ was also the end of Loki. In the original version of the film, Loki truly does sacrifice himself for his brother, dies, and completes his redemption character arc.

But test audiences were convinced Loki’s death — written and performed sincerely as Loki’s real death scene — was a mistake. Their conviction that Loki had faked his death and was still alive somehow was so absolute that Marvel changed the ending to show Loki surviving the Dark Elf attack and impersonating Odin while sitting on the throne of Asgard.

The revised, audience-driven ending of ‘Thor: The Dark World’ is an indicator that Loki was always destined for redemption by sacrificing himself for his brother — this is still Loki’s end in ‘Infinity War’. The fact that Loki’s motivations and loyalty to his family were still in question at the beginning of ‘Infinity War’ is testament to the nuances of Loki’s character and Hiddleston’s emotionally layered performances.

We want so badly for Loki to be good. But we love watching him look good while doing really bad things. 

Part 3

Read part 3 covering Loki’s character arc in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, plus a quick peek at ‘Loki’ the Disney+ series.

What are your opinions about Loki? Tell me in the comments!

Read Part 2, covering Loki’s character arc in ‘Avengers’ and ‘Thor: The Dark World’

Read Part 3, covering Loki’s character arc in ‘Ragnarok’ and ‘Infinity War’

The Anti-Hero Prince of the MCU

As Tom Hiddleston, the actor who portrays Loki, says: “The devil plays the best tunes.” The playful and mischievous Loki is one of the most engaging antagonists and relatable characters of the MCU. He’s also one of the few villains with enough character depth and audience empathy to earn his own series (on Disney+).

We find the roots of Loki’s enduring celebrity by following his character arc from ‘Thor’ to ‘Avengers: Infinity War’.

Redemption Character Arc

Throughout five MCU films, Loki completes a redemption character arc. As befits a shapeshifter, Loki’s motivation and fraught relationships with his family change in each film. This constant evolution keeps his character fresh and prevents Loki’s from becoming a stale, one-note antagonist. Loki isn’t a one-dimensional mustache-twirling villain because his motivation isn’t limitless greed or a pure desire for death and destruction. 

Loki is an engaging and relatable antagonist because he is driven by his complex family relationships. He feels under-appreciated by his father, Odin, and over-shadowed by Thor, his big brother whom he calls a ‘witless oaf’. Loki was raised by Odin thinking he was destined to be a king, then discovers that he was abandoned by his biological father, Laufey. Left to die, Loki was adopted by Odin for political expediency, only to come up short in comparison to Thor and be treated as the second-best son by his adoptive father.

Loki’s complex family history motivates him to prove himself worthy of his adoptive family’s love. Loki achieves almost universal relatability because the desire to be loved is innate within all of us to some degree. He’s also a charming and stylish underdog.

Tom Hiddleston says: “You’ve got your chips on Loki… you want to believe in him.” 

Or as the Hulk puts it: “He really grows on you.”

Brains Over Brawn

Loki is much more able approachable as a character than Thor. Like most of us, he’s got to leverage his brains since he’ll never be able to compete with Thor’s brawn. As Tom Hiddleston observes: “Thor would be lifting tree trunks, and Loki would be doing some yoga.” Loki reminds me of dwarf Tyrion Lannister as compared to his strapping brother Jamie — ’the kingslayer’ — in George R.R. Martin’s ‘Game of Thrones’.

‘Thor’ (2011)

In his YouTube essay, WillFoxification says: “Not every villain needs to be as complex as Loki to be effective, but Loki is dynamic is a way that no other villain is. He’s beloved by fans for being a complex villain with his villainous logic deeply rooted in his personality and growth as a character.”

To discover out how Loki’s villainous logic works, let’s take a deep dive into ’Thor’.

Loki is the spiritually damaged second son of Odin who is overshadowed by his older brother and Odin’s biological son, Thor, in Kenneth’s Branagh’s 2011 film. When Loki learns that he is the abandoned son of Laufey, king of Odin’s conquered enemy the Frost Giants, Loki angrily confronts Odin about why Odin lied to him about his real parentage.

Tom Hiddleston gives a virtuoso performance when screaming the two words that so many children have longed to demand of their parents: “Tell me!”

That was the moment I became intrigued by Loki as a complex, empathetic antagonist, and a fan of Tom Hiddleston as an actor. Shouting and making demands of his adoptive father but with distraught tears in his eyes, Hiddleston demonstrates Loki’s rawness and emotional volatility. Loki is ambitious, demanding, vulnerable, angry, pleading, manipulative and remorseful, and Hiddleston captures it all in one scene.

Shifting Identity and Alliances

While hauling around such intense emotional baggage, Loki’s alliances seem to continually shift throughout the film. He angrily confronts Odin about being Laufey’s son and sends Odin into an inert state. Loki then enables the Frost Giants to invade Asgard, but kills his biological father, Laufey, before Laufey can kill Odin.

When Loki challenges Thor fight him, Loki justifies his unpredictable and contradictory behavior. He tells Thor that he did it all to ‘to prove to father (Odin) that I am a worthy son… and true heir to the throne.’ A few lines later, Loki declares that he ‘never wanted the throne’ and that he only wanted to be Thor’s equal. Loki claims that he is Odin’s son but also tells Thor ‘I’m not your brother’ in the same scene.

We believe Loki’s mercurial statements about who he is and what he wants because we understand his complex backstory. Much of that believability can be credited to Hiddleston’s performance. Hiddleston skillfully holds the conflicting parts of Loki’s personality and motivations in balance, and gives the character a Shakespearean poignancy. 

It’s All About Family

Audiences have deep empathy for Loki because they understand and can relate to his family struggles. Loki’s reaction to the emotional bombshell of being adopted is understandable, and his torrent of conflicting outbursts against Odin and Thor (and even Frigga, in ‘Thor: The Dark World’) reads as real and intensely human. 

Loki embodies a familiar contradiction that results from the dueling aspects of his personality. He loves his family and he hates his family. And Loki hates that he can’t stop loving his family, no matter how much pain and frustration it causes him. 

Parts 2 & 3

Read Part 2, covering Loki’s character arc in ‘Avengers’ and ‘Thor: The Dark World’

Read Part 3, covering Loki’s character arc in ‘Ragnarok’ and ‘Infinity War’

What are your opinions about Loki? TELL ME (*wink*) in the comments!