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.
“Stop. There are not words to describe all the ways that that sentence is wrong. No. I can’t-” Tony pressed a hand to the muscle twitching beside his eye. “No.”
Steve ignored him. “Bruce was trying to teach Thor to knit, and they decided on a tea cozy he could give his mother-”
“Please stop. Please, Steve.”
“And it didn’t go all that well, it was a little lopsided and not mom-present worthy, so Bruce was trying to cheer him up and find something else they could use his work for, and they settled on a hat because it was already the right shape, but it was too small for any of us, even though Thor tried it on.” He paused. “You should be glad we didn’t publish THAT picture in the New York times.”
“So. Much. Pain,” Tony gritted out.
“So since Thor loves Calcifer the toaster like a pet, the hat got a pompom and was gifted upon the toaster.”
Four (Or Five) Reasons for Kidnapping Tony Stark by Scifigrl47 gives me much joy so I’ll probably draw a few more pieces for it. Calcifer’s hat is too big, I realise that, but he at least looks like a toaster so I count this as a win.
knitting in the dark 