#loki criticism

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

'Loki' Head Writer on Season 2 Finale and MCU Future (esquire.com)

I think this more than enough proof how unsalvable this entire series always was going to be. Because they made the TVA fascists, they were based off of 1984 and had straight up nazi coding. Remember all the art promotion? But then they honestly call Mobius someone who's like a company man, who sometimes breaks the rules, but really he just wants to live his life. Mobius was a fascist for hundreds of years and never spared a single person or even tried thinking of another way. I don't understand how some can be so unaware of what they've written.

Oof, that interview was painful to read.

The bit about Mobius just comes to prove these people don't understand the ramifications of the stuff they have written. We saw Mobius as that "company man" in S1 and I have no idea what they have done with him in S2, but if he didn't have his own beliefs challenged then this character is in the exact same spot as the first S1 episode.

Most of the time, these writers keep moving their characters from one place to another but when it comes to characterization, they always end up the same way they started. The character is taken from point A to B but... has said character really learnt anything about themselves? Or are they just going through the motions, reacting to stuff happening to them and taking on roles that don't ever develop their own personal story?

Mobius is never challenged, he was a company man who in his own words didn't get hung up on "believe, not believe", he just "accepted what is" - which basically means he took everything the TVA said to him as the absolute truth - so he NEEDS to have those beliefs challenged. He has to be written as someone who feels guilt, regret, remorse, who understands his role in the machine, and who is changed by the story. But the writers never did that because it wasn't in their plans to tell a story against the TVA - as Wright said, the TVA is their Shield. They're the good guys! 🤦‍♀️

Now, what Martin says about Loki: "The big idea was taking Loki from a lowercase-g god, to a capital-G God" is slightly insulting. Loki IS a God. But the rest is even worse: "[...] he gets his throne—but it's not a throne he wants anymore. This is a duty. He's doing this so everyone else can have their lives. He's giving up the thing that he wants most so that everyone else can have their free will."

So, that's basically the worst possible story you could tell about him? He "gives up" what he wants most? So this is yet another case where Loki doesn't get what he wants? He gets a throne, that he never wanted in the first place and we've known that since Thor1, and he has to sacrifice himself, his life, his future, his needs... so that everybody else can have their lives? It's a confirmation of this...

I don't know what to tell you. As a Loki fan that is not what I wanted to see. I haven't watched S2 so I have no idea if he takes on that role willingly or not, but this is Loki sacrificing himself yet again while those who did A LOT more damage than he ever did get away with it scot-free. And probably even the TVA is saved and protected and not burnt to the ground, right? Ugh.

Oh, and there's one more thing that blows my mind in that interview. This part:

Q: On a macro level, where would you say Loki Season Two fits in within the overall Marvel story? Eric Martin: "I actually don't know what the overall story is going to be. Things are so siloed off."

Marvel should be telling the head writers of their series what the overall story is. The MCU is supposed to be a "connected" universe. It doesn't surprise me that the latest phases are all over the place when these people have no idea what the main story is.

[chaoticace22]

do you know that thing when you open up tumblr and feel deep confusion?

ps. it's just a meme pls don't come after me

[sjbattleangel]

Face it, Darth Vader, Zuko, Piccolo, Vegeta, Magneto, Loki and Venom did far worse, unforgivable things yet when they were redeemed to varying degrees, fandom gave them free passes. Yet when Catra ,a child soldier who was physically and mentally abused by her mentor, realizes how much she has hurt the people around her; strives to be a better person; saves her childhood best friend and the entire world with the literal power of love (in spite of the series being cut short), fandom screams for her blood, yelling that she was "the real villain" and "should've died".

I have nothing against either Vader, Zuko, Piccolo, Vegeta, Magneto, Loki or Venom. However, when fandom declares a queer catgirl to be "the face of unforgivable evil", that's when we need to call out the blatant sexist, and kind of queerphobic, double standards.

And no, don't even give me that "BuT BaD WrItInG" thought-terminating rubbish. Funny how everything seems to be "BaD WrItInG" only when it involves some form of media made by and/or starring women, queer people and other minorities. Don't you think?

[sacredfixation]

Loki and the Deeply Valid Fear of Being a Government-Issued Android Without Knowing It

Imagine living for over a thousand years, committing intergalactic crimes, then one random underpaid TVA clerk with a monotone voice suddenly introduces the possibility that, oh, by the way, what if you were secretly a robot this whole time? And Loki, who has always carried himself with the absolute certainty of a god, pauses. Like. “Wait. What if I am?”

He hears that question and immediately does a full mental diagnostic. Have I ever glitched? Ever felt oddly mechanical? Experienced an unusual fondness for oil? Maybe he’s too good at lying. Too good at surviving. What if that’s just the programming?

The TVA worker just moves on. He doesn’t elaborate. no reassurances. theres no safety net. Just the terrifying possibility that he might get instantly vaporized for something completely outside his control.

Id like to note, his hesitation isn’t even just some random existential crisis, it’s trauma-informed. This man already lived through the experience of waking up one day and realizing he wasn’t who he thought he was.

He grew up thinking he was a prince, a god, Odin’s rightful son, only to find out he was actually a stolen relic of war. A Jotun. A creature he’d been taught to hate.

He thought he knew himself before, and he was wrong. What if he’s wrong again? What if theres something else about himself thats been hidden? If he didn’t realize he was a Frost Giant, whats stopping him from not realizing he’s actually some highly advanced synthetic being?

It’s not just a funny existential gag, it’s a callback to one of the most devastating truths of Loki’s existence:

He has never really known who he is.

It’s the muscle memory of having his entire identity ripped out from under him. It’s the learned fear of asking, What am I, actually?

Because the last time he asked that question, the answer ruined him.

[esthara]

Vax getting out of the orb:

[tangyyrine]

The thing about Viktor being confirmed asexual is that it’s bad representation.

And I’m not saying it’s a bad thing for Viktor to be viewed as ace. What I mean is that in 2024, we have long outgrown this “oh actually this character is queer!” in interviews from writers, directors, etc when they never actually depict it in the show itself.

You want Viktor to be ace? Great! Fucking show it then?

How are you going to say “someone from the LGBTQ Group at Riot told me that asexuality is often poorly represented”. AND THEN in the same breath, you’re going to say that Viktor can’t experience romantic love because of his asexuality, when that’s actually a huge misunderstanding about what asexuality is?

You can’t act like you properly represented asexuality when viewers wouldn’t even know Viktor is ace unless they read this interview.

[gloriousburden]

I think we all know this feeling unfortunately

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

I swear the "Loki " show, or really more like the Larry show. Has truly fucked up Loki character so much and how he was originally written and characterize in the first two Thor films and in the Avengers movie before Waldron and Taika Waititi got their hands on him.

From what little clips and bits and pieces of Season 2 Loki I've seen of thus far, only solidify the fact at how totally OOC and bastardized Loki has become and made into this constant hair-fliping, pitiful, weak bumbling idiot who doesn't even feel like he's the same Loki from the previous Thor films. Especially the first one, and how it seems that Sylvie is yet again portrayed as being the Much Better Loki then our Loki simply because she the GirlBoSs version.

Ugh just everything dealing with the "Loki" series has made Loki into a far-off brand version of himself and what made him such a interesting, fascinating, compelling morally complex character to begin with.

Are people srsly considering the scene where loki calles the NYC Incident "feelings getting out of hand" as good?

He would never fucking say that, man.

It is canon that he was tortured to do it. He was a whole damn mess during that whole thing and now its played down and straight up denied.

Am I missing something?

[shambelle97]

LOKI SERIES - SEASON 2 / NOMINATION CRITICS CHOICE AWARDS (2023)

Congratulations to cast and crew of Marvel Studios’ Loki on their four Critics Choice Awards TV Nominations including Best Drama Series, Best Actor in a Drama Series – Tom Hiddleston, Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series – Sophia Di Martino, and Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series – Ke Huy Quan. #CriticsChoice

Pics by: marvelstudios

[magpie-murder]

i can't be the only one who's noticed just how fucked up the concept of loki joining the tva is, right? i personally haven't seen anyone talk about this but it's one of the main things that makes me so uncomfortable about the show.

like, let me describe this without using any of the language that the series does;

a secret police dedicated to killing entire groups of people "for the greater good," one day picks up a man from one of these groups and tells him that if he doesn't help them catch the person who is trying to take them down, they will straight up kill him.

he is then given a coat to wear, branded with the secret police's logo, as well as clarification in huge red letters that he is NOT one of the secret police— he is part of the group the secret police kills.

this secret police is marketed as morally gray, and the company who makes the show releases merch for you to dress up as the secret police (or as the group that they kill) for fun because they want you to think this is cute and aesthetic.

and also the secret police uses gas chambers.

oh and also also, people draw cutesy ship art of this man and the "good cop" cuddling, while the man is clearly labeled and wearing a bland jumpsuit that the secret police forces him to wear.

[worstloki]

AU where Loki doesn’t interfere with Thor’s banishment at all and it takes Thor years to prove himself worthy and when he returns to Asgard everything is just. The same. Nothing seems to have changed at all and everyone greets him like his absence was a minor obstacle that didn’t fundamentally change Thor and the worst part is Loki stepped down from the place as regent without any delay and Thor can’t help but feel there’s something underlaying the way his brother looks at him now and won’t let him touch him and Thor doesn’t know what he could have missed because he doesn’t think he would have found anything wrong with the things around him and how everyone behaves if he hadn’t spent time on Earth reflecting.

[ineffablelara]

About President Loki and that scene in the void...

Ever since I first watched Loki s1ep05 I felt uncomfortable with the scene that features President Loki and all the other variants, it was weird to me how some people found it hilarious and the pinacle of comedy in the show, not to mention the ones saying "Lmao this was the most Loki thing ever, of course they all betray each other"

Something about the Lokis being portrayed as shallow, predictable, incompetent and ultimately just pathetic never sat right with me, then after some time passed I realized that that's how the people in charge of s1 viewed Loki, Kate Herron and Michael Waldron didn't have the first idea about who Loki really was and they made that atrocity of a scene that shows just how low their opinion of him is

And the pinnacle of their misunderstanding of Loki as a character is perfectly embodied in… President Loki.

Yes, I know he's a fan favourite and he's very hot and some people even say his scenes are the only time the "real Loki" showed up onscreen (lmao)

As I said above I think he's the embodiment of Herron's and Waldron's misunderstanding of Loki and here's why: At first he seems to be like the Loki we all know and loved in Avengers, he's cool, badass, the leader of an army and he stops at nothing to get what he wants

But is he really all of those things? Because as soon as he finishes his "big speech" he's betrayed by his own "army", alligator Loki bites his hand off and he starts to scream in panic and terror, hell breaks loose and well, we have that atrocious scene that makes me nauseous every time I watch it, this is them telling us what they think Loki is: a mess, someone who wants to appear cool and badass but deep down is just a pathetic loser —a bufoon, a superficial clown who overestimates himself and needs to be humbled, he's there to be laughed at, they even make our Loki look at him and get immediately embarassed at himself, to show us that he's no longer that person, he's grown beyond his foolish old self

And honestly the whole scene with the Lokis yelling generic lines and fighting each other still pains me to this day, is this what they think Loki is? It feels like mockery, it's a insult to him and to the fans, not to mention President Loki's goal to take the "throne"????

You mean that old plastic chair with funny decorations that belong to a kid? Really? Is Loki seriously that desperate for such a meaningless throne? Is he really that shallow, childish and immature? Are we forgetting Loki's real motivations to pursue the throne in the first Thor? What about his desperate need to gain Odin's approval and to be seen as Thor's equal? NahI guess he was just a generic villain with generic motivations, here we're going to turn him into a good Loki

And how were they going to do it, you may ask? By introducing Sylvie.

The only heroic Loki who ever lived, the only morally good variant, the only competent one, commited one, the serious one who never does anything "at the expense of the mission" unlike our Loki who's not really that good at doing things, not even at lying (his attempts to deceive Mobius are so pathetic I feel physical pain when watching it), the variant who's so perfect at everything that our Loki starts to worship her in a way "she's different, she's not trying to take over the TVA, she's trying to take it down and she needs me", she is who he should strive to become and maybe I wouldn't have hated that so much if she wasn't, well, what she was

A woman who hates being a Loki so much that she even changed her own name to distance herself from that person—I can't think of anyone with as much internalized self-hatred as she has. Loki represents everything she despises about herself, yet somehow, I’m supposed to believe that "falling in love with her" made Loki love himself?

Of course, I forgot to mention the fact that even though she rejects being a Loki and loathes the idea of being called one she's wrapped in Loki's collor pallete, Loki's symbols and shapes, she even wears the fucking golden horns on her head and has her own version of the green cape when we first see her

But she rejected the Loki identity

But she dresses exactly like one

🤡

Like, they drew inspirations from so many characters to make her but somehow she manages to be... nothing? She's not Lady Loki, she's not Amora, she's not Sylvie Lushton, she's not Lorelei, and, I hate to be that person but she really feels like someone's self insert

The sad things is, she had potential, she could have been so interesting but they failed her miserably, they could've explored her own self esteem issues, make both of them learn something from each other, let her admire some parts of Loki too, make her see that maybe Lokis are not as bad as she thought, that maybe there's some redeeming qualities about them, even if you can't find it in all of them

But no, let's turn her into a self insert instead of a proper character, and let's make her as annoying as possible too 🤡

Anyway, I ranted enough about her, TLDR: The people in charge of s1 misunderstand Loki on a fundamental level and the scene with them betraying each other in the void is a mockery of the character

[hiddlesfan-club]

Tom Hiddleston at critics choice awards talking about Loki!!!

[wanderingmind867]

If Rick Riordan's version of Loki is like the Joker, then his version of Sigyn is like Harley Quinn. And they both embody the same problem to me. I can't like reading about abusive relationships. Joker being abusive to Harley makes him a horrible character, and it detracts from my ability to enjoy him. Similarly, Loki being abusive (or at least seemingly implied to be abusive) to Sigyn makes me hate him. But in both these cases, I don't hate the characters. I actually hate the writers.

Because the writers didn't have to make this about abuse. A villian can have a wife or a sidekick who actually cares about them. It doesn't have to always be about abusive power dynamics. And the fact that it always seems to end up that way really just annoys me. I prefer not to think of abuse on a day to day basis. I know it happens, but it's just an uncomfortable thing that makes bad writing seem worse. It's almost lazy to fall back on the cliche of having a villain be abusive. It's not fun.

I think Loki actually is a good father. He was locked to a rock, chained up with the entrails of his dead children! Venom dripped in his eyes! I imagine he could only have been grateful his wife even tried to lessen his pain. It really just makes me uncomfortable reading about how Loki abuses his partner. It doesn't feel right. It feels wrong. And everytime I see a villain who's actually super compelling and sympathetic doing something like this, I think it'll bring me a little bit of agony inside. Gods, I hate it.

PS: I still have 49 pages left as I write this, but I think I see what Rick's building to. Sigyn is going to betray Loki because he's abusive. Then Magnus and Alex are going to get together for their "happy ending" (based on teasing and bullying), and then this book is going to foreshadow Jason Grace's death. I remember they did that one. So all of this is really steaming me up, and I don't even see the point in reading anymore. But I only have 49 pages, so I guess I should just tough it out.

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

Seriously, I've have always hated and never liked how a good portion of some MCU fans always seem to invalidate or totally disregard Loki justified anger and hurt of what both Odin and Frigga put him through.

For real how would you feel if your parents lied to you for most of your entire life or in Loki case for thousands of years and kept your adoption and the fact that you not only came from a different race / culture altogether a secret. But also you were raised and brought up to hate and see your own race as monstrous "savages" that should be killed and slaughter.

Like that would be like if you had an all White family with prejudices, bigoted mindsets take in a black child or a child that is Indigenous or Afghanistani and raised them up with deeply racist teachings and stereotyping also views about their own cultural background and race and tell them their own people are horrible due to said racist learning and said child grows up having internalized racism about themselves and their own race in general.

Like I always find it strange how some MCU fans seem to gloss over that important aspect in regards to Loki and the reasons why he so rightfully upset upon finding out that he's a Frost Giant and why he had every reason to be pissed at Odin and equally at Frigga too for hiding something this big about himself from him for so long.

Also seeing this bit of the art book it clear what a condescending view of Loki they have. I have no idea why people are so determined to try to make Loki out to be an "angsty teenager" like that's their attempt to dismiss Loki's grievances

Quote above: "It was time to push Loki in a new direction. A little less moody, a little less angry teenager"

WTF... this is disgusting and so invalidating. I want to assume these people are not doing it on purpose but I swear it's insane how they're following every step when it comes to discussing scapegoats: first they invalidate Loki's feelings, then they blame him for the family's shortcomings and his parents are always justified no matter what they do.

If that's how Herron and the others see it then I understand why ep1 was so outrageously victim-blamey.

[therese-lokidottir]

Rewatching Agents of Shield "Who You Really Are" Because I hadn't seen it in so long and there was a lot I forgot.

The basic plot is Lady Sif is on earth looking for someone, but she also has amnesia and doesn't remember who she is or what she was looking for just the work Kavas

First off, hey remember when Asgardians were super strong?

Sif doesn't remember anything except for "Only basic lessons a child would learn."

This is interesting because it shows a lot about Sif. She is very excited about the idea of being a warrior. Also, Thor's name instantly makes her smile, which is adorable. Loki fans may have a harsh opinion of Sif, but I think this episode shows that she has many inherent noble aspects. She is respectful and thankful to the SHIELD agents, and she trusts and credits them for their bravery.

So few things about this first of remember, in this scene, Odin is actually Loki in disguise. At the very least, Loki was being pragmatic and watching out for Earth. He could have easily said that The Avengers or Thor could take care of it themselves, but he took the initiative to ensure that Asgard fulfilled its duty as protectors

Second, I really did forget so much about this episode. They know about the Kree, their reputation, and their history. So, there is no reason they shouldn't know about Thanos. Loki has a reason to want to stay away, but what's the reason for Odin's inaction? He's not a secret.

Even If the Asgardians are more Aliens than Gods in the MCU it's so disappointing to see how they are so lessened over time. They were super advanced; they knew how the technology worked. They saw the universe in a different way.

I wish the Thor lore could have built more on what AOS set up.