#also if you've read the whole thing 🌟 here is a gold star for you

[martianbugsbunny]

Personally i doubt thor knows loki loves him

U know what I'm gonna take the challenge on this one. Now, this post will only discuss their relationship in the movies before Ragnarok, because I don't really like that movie and I think it did a great disservice to both the characters and their relationship; the brightest and best of them comes from Thor, Avengers, and Dark World in my opinion, so I will be talking about what I love rather than what I have at best apathy for. Sticking it under the cut (it got looooong because I love to think about their dynamic), so if you want my opinion, read on, and if you've seen enough opinions for a lifetime and don't want any more, scrumble away and have a lovely day

Okay so let's start with Thor. In the beginning of that movie, there is absolutely no doubt in Thor's heart that Loki loves him, and here's why: Thor is an arrogant man who is largely blind to the things he doesn't agree with or understand. He has this mentality of other people just being made to love and adore him, because he's the future warrior king of Asgard, he's the golden boy, and because Asgard's people really do love and adore him, so his arrogance is only being confirmed by other people's actions. And of course, there's nobody who should love and adore Thor more than his brother, right?

Now, here's where I want to digress for a minute to talk about how incredibly unhealthy their relationship is. Thor kind of has the same outlook that Loki expresses in Avengers, that people are beneath him, and that's why they should all be looking up to him with awe and praise, and that extends even to his own brother. He tells Loki to mind his place and kind of brushes off his advice, because even though they're brothers and that's the closest anyone could get to being his equal, it's still not enough. Thor views Loki as another person who is beneath him, but who ultimately can't do anything but look up to him and love him.

This is an illusion.

Loki does love Thor. Their relationship, with how complicated and messy it is, only works if they truly love each other, and they do. But it's not the blind, adulating love that Thor expects. It's a jealous, aching love. Loki craves being equal to Thor, a problem that's only exacerbated by the way Thor denies him that position. He craves to be loved as he's assumed to love. And the problem with a love like that is how quickly it can turn. If Thor won't give Loki the affection he needs, then Loki isn't going to show Thor affection the way Thor wants him to, either.

That first movie is in multiple ways a brutal awakening for Thor. He's not the man his father wants him to be. His entire life he's been training to be king and then that future seems like it's been ripped away from him. He has his power and then it's all gone. And his brother, this person around whom he's constructed a narrative of almost reverent adoration, suddenly turns against him, tries to keep him in exile and then to kill him, tries to take the life that was promised to Thor. That looks absolutely nothing like the love Thor has believed Loki feels for him.

I would feel some doubt at that point. I think anyone would. My sibling tried to kill me. Does he still love me? Did he ever love me?

And to add to that natural doubt, Thor doesn't understand Loki. He never really has. He doesn't know what it's like to be, as Loki says later, living in the shade of someone else's greatness, the trickster brother who's never really trusted, let alone lauded. And correct me if I'm wrong, but even by the end of Thor, he doesn't know what really tipped Loki off the deep end. He doesn't know that Loki's just found out he's a Jotun in a land of Asgardians, that he's the very thing he's been brought up to hate and fear, so Thor doesn't understand why Loki is acting so erratically, which must compound the doubt for him. From his point of view it's like a light switch flicked and now Loki's trying to kill him, which increases the did he ever? question. Was it always a facade? And I don't think Thor ever quite realizes the illusion he built around Loki, the difference between his expectations and reality to begin with, so he also wouldn't be seeing that it's not quite instantaneous, that there were years of building resentment and longing that contributed to the tipping point of Loki's changed behavior.

So by the end of Thor, yes, he's got to be wondering if Loki loved him.

But when Thor appears in Avengers, do you remember what plea he makes? He says I grieved for you, I want you to come home. That's not the kind of thing you say to someone you think doesn't care about you. That's a plea to the heart. That's Thor trying to get to the love he knows is in there somewhere, behind everything else that's built up around Loki's heart; that's Thor saying I know you still love me, I don't know what changed, but please let our bond be enough to fix it. Whatever he's been thinking about between the events of those two movies, he's moved past that doubt enough to think maybe Loki's love for him will be enough to bring him home, even if some part of him expects Loki to say no anyway. We know that in the interim he learned of Loki's status as a Jotun, so maybe Thor's even begun to try to understand. Maybe he's been thinking about the fact that life got very hard and very confusing for Loki very suddenly, and he wonders if now that some time has passed, there's a chance Loki wants to come back and work through it with him and their parents. When he says "we were raised together, we played together, we fought together," he's not just trying to convince Loki that he's loved, he's trying to remind Loki of his own love.

Again, during the Battle of New York itself, Thor makes a similar plea. He offers that he and Loki stop the fight together, and his eyes are so incredibly soft when he says it, you know he believes it can still work. That belief comes from knowing there's something in Loki that wants to say yes, something that loves Thor enough to give up his dream of kingdom and stop the invasion. His use of together is interesting not just because he's offering Loki a way out, putting it on the table that Loki can exercise his heart and choose a better path, but also because he's finally putting Loki on the same level he is. We can do this, we can return home, you just have to find some part of you that loves me enough to choose equality with me in this fight over equality with me in having thrones. He also holds back when he's dueling Loki, which is a horrible idea if you actually believe a person has the capacity to kill you, but if you don't believe that, it's an ultimate show of trust. Thor kind of puts his life in Loki's hands by not using his full strength, and only after Loki rejects his offer and stabs him does he finally use more brute force, although it's still not enough to kill Loki or even knock him out. Thor really believes, not just wants to believe, that Loki will not kill him given the chance, that there is something in him that wants to go home, and it's all because Thor, after all his shattered illusions, still believes there is love for him in Loki's heart, even if it has been touched and twisted by anger and pain.

In Dark World, Thor is much more pessimistic when he breaks Loki out of jail. He basically says that his brother is no longer in there, that he won't hesitate to kill Loki if he steps out of line. I think this is important to note because Thor isn't saying I don't believe you love me anymore, he's saying the person who loved me is dead and this shell is all that remains. Thor says he no longer has hope, but he's still clinging to that belief that Loki did love him, in his own way, and he would rather view Loki as dead than let go of it.

But beyond that, there's the fact that he not only lets Loki out of the handcuffs, he gives Loki a knife. Once again, you don't give a weapon to someone you wouldn't trust not to kill you, and you don't trust someone you've had so much tension with not to kill you unless you believe they love you. Loki says "trust my rage" re: Frigga being killed, but I would argue that actually wouldn't go in his favor. Thor has seen what Loki resorts to when he's not processing his emotions in any way other than rage: he attacks Thor, he falls into perfidy, he just lashes out at the closest target. And even despite that, despite having fought Loki in Thor and in Avengers, having witnessed firsthand what destruction Loki was willing to either cause or help facilitate, Thor still gives him a weapon and trusts that Loki isn't going to kill him. There is clearly still a part of Thor that is saying he loves me, he's not going to kill me.

Of course, by the end of that movie, Thor is rewarded in his faith. Loki stabs Kurse to save Thor, and it appears to cost him his life, and as he's dying, what does Thor say? Stay with me. In essence, loving me so much you'll die for me isn't enough, love me so much you'll stay alive for me. It's not a rational thing to say to someone who appears to be bleeding out; a person can't generally stave off death on willpower alone when they've been stabbed in the gut. Thor always ends up speaking to Loki's heart, because he knows that heart is bitter and full of rage and grief but also love, even though Loki is absolutely horrible at expressing it most of the time. I want to talk about why Loki might've faked his death and taken Odin's place at the end of that movie in another post, but part of me really thinks he chose that specific way to fake his death because he wanted Thor to see that Loki did love him, and that was the only way he could think of to reach out without actually having to confront his own pain and the enormity of the breach between them. Now, the "I didn't do it for him" could be taken one of two ways: it was actually for Frigga, or it was actually for Thor. I'm very much inclined to believe the latter, as Thor is the one present in the scene. Also, the expression on Thor's face when Loki says that is so frozen, like yes, I wanted more than anything to be told that you still care, but not like this. And it feels like Loki is doing his best to communicate that he does love Thor, but his communication skills, especially with Thor, are severely distorted, partially by that unhealthy relationship they had early on where he most likely never felt entirely welcome to speak his true feelings, and partially by the chasm that opened between them when Loki went into his downward spiral of destruction, both of himself and of others. I genuinely think Loki doesn't know how to just say it. To quote myself from an earlier post I made about Loki, he feels like "there’s no way he can possibly repair the relationships he’s broken," so he doesn't try to apologize and make up for it. Like someone else (I forget who) has already said, sacrifice is the way Loki makes up for things. So he gives Thor this image of a sacrifice, the ultimate expression of love and devotion, because he doesn't know how else to say it.

What's the point of all this? Thor knew Loki loved him. That's the whole point of their story. Their love for each other is the cornerstone on which that immense cosmic narrative is built. Even with doubt, anger, bitterness, frustration, grief, pain all complicating their relationship and getting in the way of actually expressing love to each other, the fundamental truth of Thor and Loki is love. Is faith. Is hope. Is saying maybe you don't know how to say it, maybe you're trying to shut it down, but I know there is something in you that loves me and that's the part I choose to believe in.

Thor knew Loki loved him.