#Thy Son | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

magnusmodig · 6 months ago

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VI TALKS ABOUT THOR/MCU / @chenshixianyou / ACCEPTING !

╰┈➤ 🔥 + brodinsons relationship (how it is portrayed either in canon or fan-portrayals, you pick)

||. I don't have many bad things to say about brodinsons in canon, that is for absolute sure. At least, I don't as far as 2011-2013 brodinsons goes. And Infinity War brodinsons. That said, I do have some nitpicks with Gag//na.rok's version of the brothers– which boils down to that they are not the same dynamic as expressed in the original three films. (Yes, I do count AVENGERS as the 2nd brodinsons film, bite me.)

As far as canon goes, Gag//na.rok does a couple of things wrong, but off the cuff the first thing that burns my biscuits is the bold claim that Loki has always had a habit of physically assaulting Thor for funzies. What started off as an improv by Ch//ri.s became a meme throughout the MCU fandom, and then from there a fanon with the brothers. It's a funny gag, I will give it that, genuinely. I chuckled when I first saw it. But having done such deep dives into both brothers in preparation for this blog in particular, I can say with absolute certainty that there is no way in hell that Loki was ever going around hurting Thor for the heck of it and I can prove it with not one but TWO meta. The first and ONLY time that Thor gets stabbed by Loki is during AVENGERS at the top of Stark Tower, and it was deliberately done on Loki's end. Thor actively stumbles out of surprise and shock that he was just harmed by his own brother— someone he once fully believed he could trust to the world's end, and whom he cherishes deeply, mind you— and is so disturbed by Loki's action that he is continues to stumble and stagger after the fact. Not because the dagger did any lasting damage to Thor (although it did draw blood, which is part of the point I'm about to elaborate on), but because it was his brother's hand who dealt the blow, and the stab itself was a symbolic gesture of severing sentiment.

(Also, because I'm sure some people will assume I'm miscounting, no Loki does not stab Thor during the Svartfalheim heist in THOR: THE DARK WORLD. It is an illusion from every moment onward after Thor and Loki share the following lines: L: You still don't trust me, brother? T: Would you? L: No, I wouldn't. Everything after that, from the moment Loki pulls out his dagger, was a ruse that both brothers were actively engaged in and had consented to. At no point is Thor caught off guard by Loki's theatrics, because the entire scene features the brothers attempting to trick Malekith (which they succeed in) to destroy the Aether (which they do not succeed in). If anything, I would go so far as to personally suggest that the brothers had designed equally elaborate schemes in the past that included similar theatrics, given the ease with which they pull this ruse off. And I say that with confidence because it is plenty clear that the brothers interactions, from the moment that Loki is released from the prison cell, and including the entirety of the escape on the Dark Elf ship, harkens back to a time long before the brothers had experienced their falling out. THOR: THE DARK WORLD does its job in showing us that the brothers, despite everything, still work well together, and they share an innate chemistry and brotherly bickering during their various adventures, including the quest to rid Jane of the Aether.)

To review the actual scene in question, I have gathered screenshots from the movie (and timestamps.)

It's important to remember 1 key detail about the brothers, and 1 key scene that ties into the moment of the Avengers tower, and that is the cliff scene, and that the brothers mostly talk in subtext.

Yes, they are talking about the overall Chutari invasion that Loki is spearheading in New York City at the exact moment in the context of which they are speaking to one another...

TO THAT END, I need to establish one other key component to fully understand the true weight behind their dynamic:

Thor and Loki's feud throughout this film has nothing to do with Earth, the threat to Earth and very rarely ever is outside of purely objective, logistical potential for harm and intergalactic war.

It's what sets Thor apart from the other Avengers from start to finish; it is what makes him the outsider. The other Avengers consider Loki an enemy. Some of them even hate him. Thor does not. He actively defends Loki and clearly loves him dearly. ("[Loki's] brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him. / "Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother." 00:53:37-00:53:47) The other Avengers see Loki and other aliens as a threat to humanity to be warded off. Thor, the resident alien of the group, obviously is testament to the polar opposite of that hot take, says as much. He knows that Loki is currently acting as the rare exception, not the rule. ("Why is S.H.I.E.L.D. building weapons of mass destruction? / "Because of people like him." / "Me? [...] My people want nothing but peace with your planet.")

There is ALSO the entirety of their opening scene together to keep in mind before I go through the Stark Tower conversation:

THE CLIFF SCENE (00:44:44-00:47:07)

T: I thought you dead. (in reference to Loki tossing himself into a black hole at the end of "THOR") L: Did you mourn?

THESE LINES IN PARTICULAR set the tone for the entire conversation. Please keep in mind that this is their first conversation since their falling out, and while I can't go into every facet of the emotional damage done to the bond between the two brothers (and especially the trauma done to Thor...), what I will say is this: the last time that Thor saw Loki was when Loki threw himself into the abyss of space to be torn apart by a black hole, and this was done RIGHT IN FRONT OF THOR'S OWN EYES after an equally traumatic banishment experience. There are A LOT of emotions going on there, and it's easy to forget that in place of much of Loki's dialogue in this scene, and for the reason I'm going to highlight right below.

T: We all did. (subtext: I did [note: Loki doesn't catch the subtext.])

This is when the brothers slip from literal meaning and into subtext, and begin to bob and weave between the two. It all starts with Thor's inability (or unwillingness, depending on how you want to read it) to speak his heart plainly to his brother. Loki asks "did you mourn [me]?", and Thor diverts from "I" (personal) did, to "We" (impersonal) did. He is actively distancing himself from the topic of grief and the mourning he experienced after Loki's "death"... but it's about as close as Thor will ever get to admitting that he, personally, mourned for Loki, and mourned deeply for him.

He then attempts to continue the distancing/deflecting with the following line, although we don't know what he was going to say to finish the sentence.

T: Our father—

L: (interrupting) —YOUR. father.

Loki interrupting this is rooted in his personal grievances towards Odin. These are grievances I will not be touching on for the length of this meta as they are virtually irrelevant to the topic at hand. Just know that in interrupting Thor here, he does rob Thor of his ability to continue to distance himself from the situation... but he also robs Thor of his ability to express whatever he might have expressed about his grieving if he had been allowed to continue.

Either way:

T: We grew up together. We played together, we fought together. Do you remember none of that?

Thor and Loki, despite being masters of speaking in subtext, have a shared habit of taking one another literally. When Loki says "I am not your brother" / "Odin is your father", Thor is taking Loki's meaning as something akin to "I am disowning you, Thor Odinson, very specifically, and I want nothing to do with you." As you can imagine this is an extraordinarily painful thing to hear, especially when BOTH BROTHERS were lied to about Loki's blood heritage for their whole lives, and Thor actually found out much later than Loki.

The most important thing to keep in mind here is that Thor is defending their bond as brothers. In that way, he is also defending the love they share. They grew up together. They played together. They fought together. They loved each other, because they were - and still are - brothers. Does that mean nothing to Loki? THAT is what Thor is asking here.

Loki is ... a prat and a dollop-head in this scene. I'll save a full scale line-by line + 2011 context meta for another time, but it's also worth nothing that thunder strikes multiple times throughout the length of this conversation and they are at the following intervals:

L: He did tell you my true parentage, did he not? (thunder rumbles. aka: yes, he did.) L: I remember you tossing me into an abyss (thunder rumbles. The thunder continues during:) T: So you take the world as recompense for your imagined slights? (aka: Thor is taking Loki's words to literally mean the black hole, instead of Loki's jealousy being 'an abyss'.) L: And you are doing a marvelous job of [protecting the humans and Earth] (Loki is taking a pot shot at Thor's insecurity of being a worthy, protector king here. Maybe I'll talka bout it in another meta...) L: I have grown, ODINSON! (Thunder rumbles. Loki is yet again distancing himself from Thor as a brother.)

T: You give up the tesseract! You give up this poisonous dream!

The brothers continue their argument. Notably, they are still talking to each other straight and without subtext with these lines. (For the uninitiated, they're arguing about being worthy to be king and what that entails which... is an entire meta that I really should discuss at some point...)

Thor then weaves the literal into the subtext of the conversation that Loki has been avoiding this entire time, which is their bond, their brotherhood, and Thor's grief.

T: You come home. (subtext: with/to me.)

Thor does NOT plead. He does not beg for anything, to anyone. Still here he is, pleading with his brother to come home. Why? Because Thor wants him to come home. THOR misses him. THOR wants him back. This is his heart's desire, and Thor is FINALLY making this conversation expressly about himself - about THEM - even if he doesn't say what's unspoken.

You, my brother, come home to me.

Silence.

This time, Loki DOES catch the subtext. He understands. It's why he is so, SO silent here; it's why he stares the way he does. He wasn't expecting Thor to plead with him over sentiment. He certainly wasn't expecting Thor to care enough to want him back.

So, this time, Loki pivots. Loki turns it into something far outside of himself. Loki makes it impersonal.

L: (about tesseract) I don't have it. (subtext: I won't/can't come home to you.)

Loki rejects him, and Thor understands Loki's meaning, but he misunderstands that from Loki's perspective, he feels himself far too neck deep into his own ambitions to turn tail now. It would be a disgrace on his honor, and Loki does not believe that he is truly welcome back, no matter what Thor says.

This all fuels the TOWER SCENE later on. (1:46:52-1:47:42)

T: You think this madness will end with your rule?

One again, the brothers are in conflict, and there is a literal text and a subtext. Overtly, they are speaking about the Chutari invasion and Loki's part to play in it, but make no mistake in believing that that's what this conversation is about. It is STILL about coming home, and it is still about them and their bond, because while Thor is fighting for Earth's safety.... I really do believe he's fighting for his brother even more than that. (yet another meta for future vi to worry about... Thor, bless him, is not an impartial being and he can't surrender his personal attachments for any cause. It's his most selfish trait, and his greatest strength but I digress.)

L: It's too late! (subtext: it's too late for us/for me [to go home to you].) L: (resigned) It's too late to stop it.

Remember that their conversation at the Stark Tower is a direct continuation of their conversation on the cliff. So when Loki says "it's too late", he isn't just talking about the invasion. He can stop that if he tries to. If anyone can, it's Loki, the greatest sorcerer in all of Asgard. Loki means it's too late for them. It's too late for HIM. It's too late for him to come home after everything he has done up to this point. (I'd imagine he may also be talking about the events of 2011 but that's neither here nor there.)

As you can see from Thor's expression, Thor is in tune with Loki's true meaning. He knows Loki is talking about himself. Hence:

T: No. We can. Together. (subtext: No it isn't too late for us. I want you to come home.)

We can fix this. We can go home, together. It is not too late for us. You can still give up this poisonous dream. I still want you to come home.

There's a long pause in which Loki stares at Thor exactly like on the cliff, and then he gives a weak smile and that is when Loki stabs Thor in the abdomen with a tiny dagger. It's enough to make Thor stagger, because Thor isn't expecting it. Thor is reaching out with arms wide open towards his prodigal brother, and once again, Loki rejects him. And to make it clear that Loki truly believes it's too late for him (something even he deeply regrets, btw. He's crying in this scene.), Loki does the one thing that he has NEVER done, and draws Thor's blood in combat. He actually WOUNDS him, and he does it by his own hand.

This is not something he had done before. Ever. Period. In THOR (2011), they sparred, but Loki was not going out of his way to actually harm Thor. (If anything he was trying to goad Thor to harm him.) And when Loki snapped Thor's neck with the Destroyer, nearly killing him, that was not done by Loki's own, personal hand, physically and in person. It's also possible that Loki wasn't actually intending to kill Thor with the Destroyer, especially given even Thor forgets his own limitations as a mortal being.

BUT THIS? This was deliberate. This was personal. This was done entirely by Loki's own hand, of his own volition, and in a way that neither he nor Thor can ever take back or pretend was a mistake.

L: Sentiment.

And so in this way, Loki is trying to rid himself of his sentiment; his lingering love for his family and especially his brother. And, in another way, he's likewise telling Thor that his sentiment won't save Loki; all that they share, all that love, all that sentiment is worthless. Because in Loki's eyes there is no saving Loki.

Loki can't go home to his family, he has fallen too far. (and yet, he still loves them; he too is filled with sentiment.)

T: You give up the tesseract! You give up this poisonous dream! You come home. L: I don't have it.

^^^ A screenshot of Thor's reaction to the dagger in question. It's small, it clearly does very little to Thor. It barely has any blood on it, but it did draw blood nonetheless, because Loki can get close to Thor, Loki knows Thor's weaknesses, and Loki knows Thor's sentiment.

It is after Thor throws this dagger - this manifestation of their bond's slow disintegration - onto the floor of the tower that Thor finally commits to protecting Earth as his number one priority... even if doing so and ignoring his sentiment continues to pain him and cripple him greatly.

Thor stumbles (1:50:25-1:50:40)

He isn't stumbling and staggering because the dagger did damage to him. He's stumbling and staggering because of who did it, and how much that person means to him. Thor has been betrayed, his heart has been broken, and while he knows without a doubt that he must stand against Loki and beside the Avengers to keep Earth safe from his own loved one... it comes at a great cost: sentiment.

This is also why the quintessential Avengers circling shot ONLY happens after Thor has the Tower moment with Loki, because then and ONLY THEN is Thor actually on the same page as the rest of the Avengers.

So, no. I don't think that Loki would have ever in a million years have stabbed Thor before that point. Not for a joke save the (apparently canonical now...) one time, and certainly not as much as fanon likes to say he would have. Thor trusts Loki implicitly. Loki is the only person in their Asgardian group who can effectively and consistently rein Thor's impulses in. They are a perfect match for each other; two sides of one coin. And Loki's betrayal would not mean as much to Thor in this scene if Loki had ever caused Thor physical harm (meaning: enough to draw blood) before AVENGERS' Tower Scene.

#(Avengers is a thor film change my mind.)#(spoiler alert: you can't.)#(this is mostly a joke for the ppl who can't read sarcasm.)#(but genuinely it is basically a .5 thor film. if thor 1 and thor 2 are thor films then avengers really is just thor 1.5)#(their bond means everything to me ok...)#( meta . ) — son of cosmos . lightning flows through thy veins .#my meta #anti thor ragnarok #( salt to taste . ) — in this house we love the actual main character . crazy i know .#(tagging just to be safe ig)#chenshixianyou #(sorry this is so long friendo im just very passionate about these two idiot moron brothers)

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