#in TDW I feel like the plan Thor came up with was to convince Malekith that Loki was against them

[worstloki]

Why don't we talk about the fact that Thor lets Loki hit him so often. If we don't take Thor 1 into consideration, In tdw too that deceiving Malekeith plan they made had so much of Loki hitting Thor on the face and what not. Would like to know your thots

Thor's into that

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

do you have any thoughts on Loki's "death" in TDW? like, was he somehow planning something like that (i don't think so but stilll)? how did he even survive, let alone manage to glamour himself and get back to Asgard so soon after being stabbed?? i have so many thoughts and feelings about TDW but i can't stop wondering about all this

oh I very much have thoughts! for various reasons, I think it was a very real injury and Loki absolutely believed he was dying--partly because I like that better in terms of whump, angst, and characterization, but also because it's just...simpler? that was the actual behind-the-scenes intent when the scene was filmed, for one thing, that this was it for Loki and it was supposed to be a sacrificial, redemptive death, and as far as I know the filmmakers didn't change anything about the actual scene, just added the bits that let him come back. for another, if it was fake--if Loki decided in advance at some point to fake his own death or he took advantage of a split-second opportunity when he confronted the Kursed--that just raises so many questions about how much of it was faked, and how he was able to do it at all when Ragnarok in particular went out of its way to establish that Loki's illusions aren't solid to the touch and in fact can't do much of anything except stand there and talk. for that matter, Loki's play in Ragnarok actually has him expanding on what he's sorry for specifically, with Thor forgiving him for each one, and...I mean I know the play is mostly supposed to be funny, but to me the additional detail provided by the play just strengthens my impression that he was being sincere when it really happened.

the show does complicate this by establishing that Classic Loki was able to create a solid illusion that fooled Thanos, and at this point I am honestly not sure whether or not his nexus event being what it was means that Classic Loki essentially didn't exist as a separate being until he did that. so it's...possible that Classic Loki was better at illusions than Sacred Timeline Loki because they actually did have somewhat different histories. but as far as I can tell, we're meant to understand that they were the same person right up to the point of divergence, when for one reason or another Classic Loki made a different choice than Sacred Timeline Loki did. (my general thought there: Sacred Timeline Loki thought about doing what Classic Loki actually did, but he discarded the idea because he wasn't confident enough that it would work, and he was positive Thanos wouldn't leave both him and Thor alive--so he gave Thanos a reason to kill him instead of Thor. Classic Loki was just a little more scared to die or a little more confident in his abilities, I guess.)

(I am only okay with talking about Loki's death, this many years later, because I only ever consider it in a context where he came back later or didn't fully die to begin with, because I am a normal person with normal issues about fictional characters.)

anyway, TDW. even with the baseline assumption that the injury was real and Loki believed he was dying, which is my firm belief, there's room for a lot of different options in terms of Loki's intentions and the reasons for his survival, and I guess I'm not...married to any of those options over the others? I usually approach it in fic with the idea that Loki believed he was dying, woke up again after all, and was like "...well great, I guess I have to deal with this now." but he could have been badly injured when he woke up, or he could have been in much better shape because his body healed itself quite a bit while he was unconscious, or he could have actually died and come back to life for a lot of different reasons, or it's possible the injury wasn't as bad in the first place as Thor and Loki both assumed, or Jotnar have some of their vital organs in different enough places that his body kinda shifted internally as he was dying and then the injury was no longer fatal, or Jotnar can kind of go into a hibernation-like healing coma that would look like death to anyone who didn't know better, or...honestly, there are tons of options for the actual mechanics of Loki's survival. at that point I think it's reasonable to assume Loki decided for a lot of different reasons that he didn't want anyone to know he was still alive, at least not yet, so he patched himself up with the magical equivalent of a big bandaid and went back to Asgard in disguise. he might have intended to overthrow Odin before he went there, or it might have been a spur-of-the-moment decision when he actually confronted Odin, based on something Odin said or did--and he could've had a lot of different motivations for that too, which we really don't know because we never see what happened between them.

now, I do think one aspect of all this was premeditated, which was: the second Loki left his cell, I think he had absolutely zero intention of walking back into it, and all his actions afterward had the underlying motivation of not going back to that cell even if he didn't have any firm plans on how he might accomplish that. I think he probably considered a lot of options, and deliberately faking his own death was one of them, but I don't think that's what he actually meant to do at that particular moment because there were way too many variables for him to have planned it. I think he would've been okay with actually dying and was maybe more reckless for that reason than he would've been otherwise. if he'd made it to the end of the battle when Malekith was defeated, maybe he would've tried to sneak off or convince Thor to let him go. I can't remember if I've said this in a fic I've actually posted or not, but I think it occurred to him that if Thor wouldn't let him go, he could force Thor to kill him instead (probably using Jane as leverage), so there was a sense of relief when things unfolded the way they did because now he wouldn't have to do that and he could die loved instead of hated.

so, I mean...the whole thing is complicated, but because there's so much we don't know about exactly what happened, pretty much any speculation can answer the questions as long as it fits the facts we do have.