#thanks for sending asks I love to ramble and talk about alex bdbfkgndkshsj

[bakedbananners]

Can we talk about his Alex literally was depicted as a villain for the beginning of the hammer of thor? Nobody had any reason to trust her and she made it kinda hard too. I do think if there was more time in the series this could have been super interesting, kinda like the reverse Luke story arc, but it was fascinating how Magnus who doesn’t trust anyone in the first book was like “no I trust her” completely. I wish it was more relevant to the book like maybe imbedded into a prophecy, but I still like this kind of detailed story developments

Villain is maybe a strong word for her imo. Not sure if I’d call her a foil either, but maybe a… morally questionable person? The point of Alex’s introduction is that she is ALWAYS more than she appears, and basically the moral is “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. She’s misgendered, she looks preppy and bright but is really moody and serious, she uses the Urnes snakes symbol, etc. Alex is considered a deviant by Asgardian standards as much as Samirah was, because they are judging her based on Loki. Hell, she even tells the Thanes to not refer to her in relation to her mother because she doesn’t even like him lol. Plus Magnus had also already befriended a child of Loki in Samirah, adding onto the whole “don’t judge people at first glance”. The audience, who read book 1 and saw how Samirah was treated due to her heritage, should catch on that it’s probably not really the case with Alex. (Maybe I’m biased bc I read it after the entire trilogy came out tho lol)

I’ve been thinking about this for a while but I do appreciate to some extent that Riordan writes Alex as having a pretty common type of trauma response by being physically destructive and flighty for a while. And the thing is that Magnus understands that. He even says he remembered doing the same things because he had a hard time adjusting. He recognizes her, sees HIMSELF in her, and because he had been given opportunities and showed extensive kindness by others, he’s passing it forward to Alex (granted that “kindness” does kinda dip into a problematic pushing of boundaries for a moment re at the campfire but alas). It’s a more “unpleasant” response to trauma that some victims/survivors go through, and I think it’s good to show that without demonizing it.

Hence I wouldn’t want her to be forced into a plot twist where she was somehow the villain the whole time or whatever, because it feels antithetical to her character to say “here’s a misfit who everyone thinks is bad, she gains everyone’s trust, and turns out she really IS bad ooooo”. HOWEVER, I think she’s a great narrative vehicle for change. Maybe I do want her to keep fucking shit up anarchically messing with the gods and giants like she did with Surt in 9ft9w. I think it would be a great way to hammer (pun not intended) home the point that the gods are shit and change comes from The People, and fate maybe can be toyed with sometimes, if not for Good then at least because it’s fun lol. It would be the only way I could accept her being a “villain” AKA opposing systemic unjust power structures and being demonized by said unjust power, in my opinion lol. I’m still rereading PJO rn so I think it would be a SIMILAR but not quite exact parallel to Luke’s story where he’s kinda doing the same thing in theory but in actuality is committing genuine atrocities instead and just generally being a piece of shit lmao.

TLDR I don’t think Alex is actually from a narrative standpoint conveyed to be a “villain” per se, but there’s literary layers to it because you’re 1) seeing things through an inherently biased 1st person narrator in Magnus 2) a lot of the characters with “moral authority” like the Thanes and Norse gods are kinda shitty and stupid anyways and 3) Alex as a character unfolds in layers. Like an onion lol. I do think it would be fun to make her a force of anarchic change and upheaval of the system which has shown to be unfair and unjust, but then Rick would have to be like an actual anarchist lol. Which he is not (AFAIK) 😢