okay but the screenwriter for Thor: Ragnarok is obviously intimately aware of what it’s like to have siblings because like…the snake scene? Bickering at every opportunity? Throwing things at each other for no real reason? “You know this guy?” “I have no idea who this person is”? Smirking when your sibling does something cool because ‘nothing but respect for MY sibling’ and then turning around and punching each other in the face right afterward? Stabbing each other for fun and then going ‘oh come on you big baby, that didn’t even hurt’? The fucking ‘Get Help’ scene? Like bruh…that is some Truth in Hollywood right there
In honor of this post reaching 10K notes, I have more examples of Siblinghood Done Right in Ragnarok:
*parent leaves the area* “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!”
“You’re just…the worst.”
*internally* bitch I am the only one that gets to kill my sibling back off!
That little conciliatory pat on the back Loki gives to Thor after Thor says “Jane and I dumped each other”
“I swear I left it right here”
*casually talking to each other about something mundane with the underlying threat of violence everpresent in both of your voices*
casual jibes and banter about the way each other dresses (“Why would I do that? I’m not a witch.” “Then why do you dress like one?”)
“YES! THAT’S WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE!”
but also the concealed worry about your sibling getting actually hurt, even though you know they’ll probably be fine
Loki’s extremely obvious eyerolling when those girls approach Thor in public and ask for a selfie
*sibling walks in while you’re trying to cause trouble and enjoy yourself* “oh shit”
like, heimdall saw that shit right? odin comes back through the bifrost and heimdall is just “…………….”
heimdall: that’s a baby
odin: yes! he’s my son! ………..loki. i’m going to dress him in green and black, because that worked great last time
or odin comes back and is trying to figure out, how to play it, and heimdall and frigga are just waiting for him and completely deadpan
frigga: ah, husband! you have returned from war in time to meet your newborn son. who i had. after being pregnant. secretly.
odin: what
frigga:
heimdall:
loki: *baby noises*
odin: right
honestly, i just need heimdall going up to frigga like “you won’t believe what your husband just did”
odin: he’s a replacement for the child I had to lock away in the shadow realm.
heimdall:
odin: I’ll do better by this one. I know I will.
heimdall:
heimdall: You mean Frigga will.
Odin: Please can we keep it? It’s cute and changes colours and smiles at my empty eye socket. I promise I’ll take care of it I’ll feed it every week and I’ll dress it in green and black and I’ll teach it to throw knives and it will be great!
thor ragnarok fight scene but holding out for a hero is playing
I was fluttery and charmed and delighted by one of my fave cheesy songs x Chris Hemsworth the Lightning God, but then Valkyrie came on and I made this involuntary guttural moaning sound and sank into the couch with my legs spread.
Hhhhhhholy shit. Hhhhholy SHIT can I please just … UGH.
concept: Loki dies in Infinity War, and Thors like “lmfao yeah right”
time passes, but still, hes faked his death longer. a memorial is put up, songs are sung, Thor still wont believe it. as the years pass, he stops eyeing anyone acting out of character suspiciously, forgets how long its been since he expects to see him when the battle is raging.
one day, when he’s as old and grey as his father, he does what he never thought he would do; he brings a tribute to Lokis’s memorial. its then he finally understands that he’s gone. that that familiar presence was just his love for his brother, and that he supposes in a way, he really didn’t leave hi–
and then the monument transforms into Loki and hes like mblerg! and stabs him
i’m 101% sure that this entire line was improv and tom couldn’t help it
“Yeah, that was basically, we did about six different versions of that story, and that was just us standing around while the cameras were rolling and I would just feed them lines and feed Chris ideas for stories. I’d say, “Do another one, in this one say: ‘I was walking through a field, and I saw a lovey Turkish rug in the middle of the grass, and I love Turkish rugs, so I went to stand on it, and it was Loki, and he turned back into Loki and there was a hole and I fell through the hole was was impaled on a whole lot of spikes.’” So we did versions of that, and the one with the snake just ended up being the one we used.”
So at first I was a little ??? about Hela being Thor’s sister in Ragnarok (squeezing her into the role Angela so recently acquired as their long-lost-big-sister in comics), but the more I think about it, the more I like what it does for Thor and Loki’s arc.
Thor now has two siblings who became his antagonists because of his father keeping secrets – hiding Loki’s heritage, and then hiding Hela’s existence. Which re-enforces how damaging that habit of lying and secrecy is to Asgard’s growth, as represented by Thor. Having those secrets come out and be faced is necessary for Thor’s development and maturity – confronting the sins of his father.
And for Loki – when Loki tries and fails to be a hero, he becomes a villain. He always measures himself against Thor, and then casts himself as Thor’s opposite. But with Hela showing up, suddenly the role of bad guy has been usurped by another sibling; he’s no longer the baddest Asgardian, or even the baddest of Odin’s kids. His sins are now in a whole new context, where his misdeeds are frankly small potatoes. He’s not only been outstripped as a hero by his sibling – he’s been outstripped as a villain. And that forces him to find some other measure of identity; not wholly good, not wholly evil, but something in between – something new.
Also, it re-enforces their brotherhood in an interesting way. Hela is Asgardian. Hela is Thor’s blood sibling (or at least half-sibling). And Hela is still awful. In that light, Loki can no longer ascribe his wickedness to his heritage – he isn’t evil because of some innate genetic factor, or because he isn’t Asgardian, since Hela is clearly capable of that evil despite being raised on Asgard and having Odin’s genes. And while Hela and Thor share blood, they have no kinship to speak of. Thor and Loki do, despite the lack of blood relation. They snipe and bicker like brothers throughout, and there are callbacks to their childhood and past together (the snake story, ‘get help’).
Hela’s appearance as Thor’s sister lends new context to both Thor and Loki’s relationship with each other and their family, and I think it gives us, as fandom, a lot of fresh material to play with as far as our boys’ character growth moving forward.
knitting in the dark 