#interesting to think about a possible background in restoration and the injury he sustained in Svartalfheim

[abby118]

og trilogy HC/thoughts:

Something I've been thinking about is how people see Loki's magic and possibly misunderstand the role it plays. As some of you know I do have my extensive ideas of how magic works, particularly the one seen in relation to Asgard, but this will be more in the general sense.

In canon, both Thor and Loki are the princes of Asgard and there is no doubt that, that must have come with a life-long training that probably started out similarly but branched differently as they got older and found their preferred areas of both combat and their overall skillset.

Where I'm going with this is that with Thor it's obvious; while I do think, that he absolutely did undergo training more similar to Loki's chosen type in his youth, it changed as he found what was natural for him early on. He is a warrior, (whether he can or cannot access magic is up for debate depending on how you interpret his relation to Mjölnir and the power it lets him wield as well as his parents and their relation to magic given that he is a biological son). That said, he obviously doesn't rely on stealth, speed or his mind as much as his brother.

You can say both of them use a traditional way of combat as well as magic, but while Loki IS a skilled fighter, it looks different and he is an active magic user on top of that, in the sense that his power comes from within him rather than some external object he carries. Generally speaking, he relies on more subtle and calculated techniques and his magic is an addition to that; an active extension of his skills that he has the option not to use as his only means of defence and attack.

A notable observation about this is, that Loki doesn't use his magic unless necessary or perhaps serving as a way of personal entertainment. This is different to how we see magic users on Midgard overuse their magic for frivolous tasks that (in my opinion) betray their lack of confidence in its use as well as their short life spans. Loki knows he can rely on his powers if needed and doesn't feel the need to be proving that to himself or the people around him.

In addition to that, I truly do not see him using it primarily as the means of attack. He has his speed and his blades for that. (He also probably prefers to reach for weapons first because of the nature of his culture and their connection to a warrior identity + the associations around magic). That is not to say he wouldn't know how to weaponise it, he obviously would and it probably is an area he studied extesively, but it is not his first choice. What he does is, that he uses it for illusion, disguise; if we continue with that pattern (given we only saw a sliver of his life), you would probably get subtypes such as manipulation, conjuration, alteration, restoration, protection, the list goes on before you reach destruction.

This also adds to what we see in the palace - the healers; all the ways the realm and the city within it operates. Magic in Asgard is not used for destruction as its primary benefit.

So no, when I see people write him the way they do Wanda or Strange, I disagree. His own experience and skill is beyond that and it gave him the space to choose. It's much like when an expert will seem less knowledgeable explaining a topic because they don't blurt out the first thing that comes to their mind and actually take time to give you a proper explanation using their knowledge.