#i mean at least they aren't as dehumanised as the chitauri

[tyrannuspitch]

musing on jotunheim again. as much as i like to talk about the thor movies as self-subverting and critical of imperialism from the beginning (which i stand by, on a thematic level!), the way the jotuns are actually portrayed is uhhh Not Great.

like. recap: they wear very little clothing, they are presented as extremely physically strong and menacing, they have very deep voices and express themselves nonverbally more than asgardians (ie they growl :/), they use ~nature magic~ and blend in with their landscape, they have very strongly distinct facial features from asgardians, and their skin is a bright colour not found among asgardians. this is... looking uncomfortable close to a racial caricature. like if you made the small but vital change of making their skin red instead of blue it would be undeniable. as it stands, it's not quite literally there, but it's got Coding for days.

and on top of that, loki, while he is a twist villain, is definitely portrayed as more sympathetic for having more human features. like... yes, he has fantasy-dwarfism or something like it and is therefore in some ways inherently vulnerable... but his vulnerability is still visually represented through less othered features, which kind of frames the other jotuns as INvulnerable - in comparison to the average asgardian, not just loki himself.

(which is also just... not true. asgardians and jotuns seem to be evenly matched on a physical level. and also the idea that physical strength is the be-all and end-all of power and vulnerability to begin with is Bad. i guess the end corrects this a little: we see jotuns screaming and fleeing the bifrost, frightened, powerless, victimised! but we still only see adult men. loki is the only jotun we see as a child, and we never see a jotun woman. where are the jotuns who aren't warriors or kings?)

also. less important. but. the jotuns do not reflect any existing culture. which, on one hand, is like. great thanks for only putting in a vague racial caricature and not a specific one 👍. but on the other hand. what are you meant to Do. with a human AU loki.

like obviously step one is dialling down the formerly-space racism by a factor of about a hundred lmao. but like even if you do somehow manage to handle his whole deal sensitively... if asgard = scandinavia, what is jotunheim. what IS loki's culture. is he sami? is he white-passing mixed inuit? it's pretty damn significant that jotunheim has its own monarchist + imperialist past and was originally a competitor to asgard, so should he just be, like, a different scandinavian nationality from odin? or maybe russian or something? but then there isn't racism to deal with. potentially some level of linguistic/cultural shame, sure, but no accusations of devil worship, no dehumanisation via race science, etc. nothing quite fits.

or even disregarding AUs, what real-world culture can/should you draw on to flesh out jotunheim, if any? is it inappropriate to do so at all when they're treated SO horrifically and they're also, you know, Blue Fantasy Aliens. or is it erasive to act like scandinavian colonialism is pure fantasy with no real-world implications. OR is it inappropriate to draw on real-world indigenous peoples for a fantasy history that doesn't reflect their actual history very well at all (see above: nothing fits.)

a thought i had recently was that the combination of blue skin, gold body jewellery, and warriors wearing very little clothing actually resembles descriptions of ancient celts (with either tattoos or body paint). and i feel like having some historical basis for jotun warriors, even if it's centuries apart from the viking inspiration of asgard, can maybe slightly improve on what's currently there. but equally, that's still a description from an imperialist (roman) perspective and i'm pretty sure its accuracy is... controversial?

yeah. a conundrum! i have no solutions at present i'm just thinking about it all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯