#this isn't a post meant to drag thor btw

[iamanartichoke]

Sometimes  I really do think a lot about how I have no idea how much of Thor/Thor’s feelings for Loki are arguably canon, and how much I’ve projected onto him based on fanon and fic. I was reading some of my old meta and while there’s lots going on under the surface of Thor that I and others have taken a stab at exploring, the films - all of them - really leave a lot to be desired, insofar as how Thor treats Loki: 

Thor never says I love you. 

Thor never pushes beyond surface-level. 

Thor seems more willing to just believe that Loki has simply “turned evil” than willing to put in the emotional energy to figure out why. 

Thor is content to leave Loki in prison indefinitely, and has no narrative issue with Loki’s life sentence (in fact, he even makes sure Loki knows that Thor intends to put him right back in prison after their road trip to Svartalfheim). Frigga intervened; Thor didn’t. Would Thor have been okay with Odin executing Loki? 

Beyond his initial heartbreak, he doesn’t seem very affected by Loki’s death in TDW. One could argue that he doesn’t seem very affected by Frigga’s death, either, and that’s bc Thor would rather push his emotions down and/or fight them out than express them but, again, is that actually true or is that a headcanon? 

He leaves Loki’s body on Svartalfheim and never asks after it or attempts to go back for it after Malekith was taken care of. 

His defense of Loki as a person in Avengers is undermined by “he’s adopted,” and he doesn’t really attempt to defend Loki after that. There’s no “this isn’t who Loki really is, something is wrong,” there’s no “I’ve known my brother for a literal millennium and seriously, this isn’t like him,” there’s no “Loki, even if this is you, I fucking love you anyway and I’m not going to stop loving you, so please let’s figure this out.” 

(Re that last point - the “broken crayon” scene from Buffy lives rent free in my head [15 years and 137,000 viewings later and it still makes me tear up], and I often compare it to Thor and Loki - how the closest thing we get to something similar is ‘we can stop it together’ on Avengers tower and how much is lacking from the latter. It’s all kinds of heartwrenching for a lot of reasons. I’m not saying there was narrative time or space for a full on broken crayon scene, I’m just saying they could have done better in showing Thor trying a little fucking harder.) (I realize Joss Whedon did both of these scenes. my point stands.)   

I don’t have much of a point in writing all of this out, and I am certainly not trying to start any Thor wank so please don’t let this post spiral, it’s just something I think about a lot and was specifically thinking about today bc of how far apart Thor and Loki have come in canon. 

And not to make this about Ragnarok but I often feel like a catalyst of the frustration in how Thor treats Loki in Ragnarok and how their ‘reconciliation’ leaves a lot to be desired for a lot of people, is that - I’m not really sure how to articulate it except to say that the first half of the franchise gave us a broken, complex relationship with a ton of unexplored potential and, by having Thor kinda change things up regarding how he treats and interacts with Loki, and having the narrative slap a band-aid on the relationship before killing Loki off, there’s that extra bitterness of, okay, I guess we’re never going to explore any of that potential. And that’s ... you know, something that sucks. 

Ftr, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with projecting a lot of fanon/headcanons onto Thor and/or Thor’s behavior in the films irt Loki. Personally, I wouldn’t enjoy their relationship as much without the supplemental metas and headcanons and fanon things (even things as simple as Thor having a lock of Loki’s hair braided into his own). I’m just acknowledging that it’s a thing that happens, at least with me, and how disappointing it is to remember that a lot of Thor’s motivation and character development comes more from meta than from actual source material. 

Plus, it’s more than a little irksome to see that the widespread assumption about Loki is that there were no more stories to be told after he died and until they reinvented him and made him “fun,” (apparently that particular quote is going to stay under my skin for awihile and idek where it came from - one of the reviews, I think? I saw it on my dash somewhere, idk) because like - *gestures like Will Smith at his and Thor’s relationship and all the unexplored nuance and complexity* 

Like, come on.