Distinguishing quality and preference concerning the Loki show
I’m tired, so please allow me to address some misconceptions people who liked the show have about us (the people who did not like the show).
1. “People hate the show because they can’t identify with Sylvie”
For me this one is true. I can’t identify with her, and I would say that’s probably because the show did a bad job of establishing her trauma. The first time we “see” her is in the song ‘I need a hero’ slaughtering Minutemen. That’s two opposing messages here: a) she’s supposed to be the hero, b) she’s slaughtering people who have not been shown to be evil by themselves. Yeah, they work for an evil organization, but they are only workers. Butchering them is at least a sign of bad taste. As soon we “meet” her properly, she TELLS us of her trauma. It is not SHOWN. (Please google the rule “show, don’t tell” for a longer explanation). I didn’t see her suffering, so all I have is my fantasy to picture her. The self-assured way, the heroic song, the cool outfit. Nothing indicates her suffering besides her words. Also, on TV things that are only told normally turn out to be lies or at least ambiguously framed.
-> This is a sign of the bad quality of the writing!
Also, I personally can’t stand Sylvie. She’s rude to my favorite character and while I am aware that in-universe she doesn’t have any reason to be nice and her backstory did not exactly involve many occasions to learn a respectful way around people it doesn’t endear her to me.
-> This is about preference and not the reason why I call her badly written. That I do because they didn’t show her backstory which would probably have done more to endear her to me.
2. “I’m baffled how many people failed to understand what the show is about.”
You see, “understanding” and “falling for it” aren’t the same. Yes, I get the show was structured as a classical redemption arc;
It gets established why the villain is bad: Loki is framed as a power-hungry narcissist who invaded New York solely to get a throne. He doesn’t even know why he wants one, but it’s his goal to rule.
A savior appears, showing the villain the consequences of his evil ways: Mobius video shows Loki that his former self’s evil deeds ended with him getting killed by Thanos. It also shows him, it was his hunger for power and revenge that led to Frigga’s death.
The villain agrees to help said savior but does it in truth for selfish reasons: Loki helps Mobius because he wants to meet the time keepers and possibly overthrow them, so he finally gets to rule.
Working together makes them build a relationship: That’s what the salat scene, Pompei and Mobius telling Loki he is sorry for the ice runt, shivering in the cold are for.
The villain betrays the savior in a critical moment, relapsing into his old, evil habits: Loki betrays Mobius by following Sylvie through the portal. He possibly plans to team up with her against the TVA.
There are consequences for the villain, showing him that his relapse destroyed the relationship he cherished already, because he never had one “real” relationship before: Mobius calls Loki a “bad friend”. Later Loki’s involvement leads to Mobius being pruned.
The villain is now outcast from the good side, and finds himself among fellow villains again, but realizes this doesn’t fit him anymore: Loki finds himself among the traitorous Lokis in the void, who are all power-hungry narcissists, except for Classic Loki, Kid Loki and possibly Alligator Loki, who managed to “fix themselves” as Classic Loki said.
The villain finds his new purpose in a relationship that makes him now fight unselfishly for the good side: Loki decides to fight for Sylvie’s goal even though she’s not even there for the positive feedback. Later he risks his life and sacrifices the Utopia Miss Minutes offers him.
So, why would one possibly hate that? BECAUSE LOKI HAS NEVER BEEN A NARCISSIST!! They redeemed something that NEVER WAS PART OF HIS CHARACTERIZATION!!! The redemption arc does not work if you considered Loki a good person at the beginning.
In the show, he needsto be a narcissist, power-hungry, and selfish because Mobius slide show is supposed to open Loki’s eyes to the bad consequences his behavior has for those he loves. Mobius standing by him is supposed to show Loki how being selfless pays off. Mobius calling him a bad friend is supposed to show Loki the consequences of relapsing into bad behavior. Sylvie is supposed to show Loki that he is as lovable as she is and that him enduring all that happened to him can be considered good quality. An internal value HE has just as much as she has, so there is no need for him to delve into power plays for something external to measure his value on.
Let me repeat that: If you consider Loki a good person who acted well-intending before and only happened to cause bad things by accident the REDEMPTION ARC DOES NOT WORK! Because you will have someone who wanted to protect Asgard from a war with other realms by delaying Thor’s coronation and ended up being tortured into compliance by Thanos ONCE AGAIN tortured, having to plead for his life. That is no redemption arc. Even if you include him admitting that he does not enjoy hurting people and he is afraid of ending up lonely (which is both in good agreement with his former characterization). It makes him just more miserable and the people who treat him like that even crueler. If Mobius wanted to manipulate this Loki into compliance, he would have shown him Thanos torturing him, threatening him to put him back into a time cell where Thanos does that over and over again. A morally good Loki had been aware of the bad consequences of his doings because he didn’t do the things for himself. His original source for self-loathing was that he was treated lesser by Odin, that whatever he tried, he never managed to be “worthy” and most of the time he was not even hearted. But he still was a good person, who tried to do the right thing for Asgard, protecting her people. Healing him would have demanded someone to acknowledge Loki was mistreated, to hear him out. Not to tell him how selfish and evil he was.
-> Loki has been known as a complex villain ever since Thor 1. Complex in this context means he’s not simply bad because he’s evil, but because his motives can be seen as honorable. The show changes that into him being one-dimensionally evil. A redemption arc not being tailored for the character it is about is a sign of bad quality.
I have been in the fandom ever since Ragnarok. I have both read and written endless metas on how he is a good person. I followed many meta writers because I loved to see their takes on how Loki endured mistreatment and still chose to spare this servant’s life who ridiculed him. Perhaps it is true that I only hate the show because it didn’t confirm my headcanons. But you know what? I loved the hero Loki. I hate the villain they made him in the show. And I hate how people are now saying Loki was never able to love someone before, denying his love for both Thor and Frigga that had been shown in the former movies. I hate how people who defended him against people who saw him only as a bad guy are now saying he rarely showed prosocial behavior (as if saving Asgard from Thor’s idiotic rule, or giving Thor his support and love if under the disguise of being Odin at the end of TDW would have been anti-social.)
So, to be entirely clear here: The show is anti-Loki.
It’s easy to miss since it is (supposedly) a show about him, putting him into the focus. But the show is biased against him, and it shows in many, many little details. One is that Loki gets mercilessly ridiculed. Scenes such as the slow-motion punch, him trying to argue for “fine Asgardian leather”, him threatening Alioth with a toothpick just to get ignored, and so many more scenes – those are NOT intended to show a person in a good light! If their goal was to make the show fun, there are other kinds of humor. There is snark (remember Avengers Loki), there is Loki playing tricks on others, there would be the possibility to humiliate OTHER characters. Neither Sylvie nor Mobius had been ridiculed in the show even once! Why not? In Thor Ragnarok, even Thor gets his share But not in the show.
That was not by chance. That was intentional. It retconned his characterization into now being inherently evil shown by the fact that all Loki’s in the void are or have been evil.
For all those who like to argue the show was Tom’s baby and we have to like it because he liked it: in 2013 that “all he gets ‘he’s evil’, thanks”. Now he started an interview with “Loki is a comic book villain”, while looking dead inside. Only 5% of his ideas made it into the show. This trailer ridicules Tom speaking well about Loki. Waldron calls Loki an “ass”. How much more evidence do you need to see the creator’s bias against him? As of yet, it might be possible to see situations like Loki challenging Alioth with a toothpick and say “you moron” lovingly. But how long will it stay like that? As I mentioned above – there are already people who like the show who are adapting the “Loki has always been evil rhetoric”. If this goes on, Disney will make you shit on him just as much as they are already doing. It does not matter we can now cite canon that Loki “never enjoyed hurting people” because the show made it canon he INTENTIONALLY hurt people to sate his hunger for power. It is not by accident the show never addressed him being tortured by Thanos because that is not canon for them. The Marvel wiki says he had been influenced by the scepter, like the Avengers when they started arguing. That is not the same as being tortured or mind-controlled. They (the creators of the show) made it canon that Loki himself acted on his own free will to invade New York and help Thanos because that is how they see him. As a villain who didn’t care for anyone but himself.
If you enjoy the show, I am glad for you and a bit jealous because at least you got the Loki content you wanted or are somehow able to reconcile it with a conflicting view on him. But that is not my Loki. I loved the good man he had been in phases 1 and 2.
TLDR: Please stop telling me my reason would be that I can’t identify with Sylvie or because I’m a misogynist.
This is all still true. I do have the distinct impression that, however cruelly the writers treated the character, Tom and Owen still tried hard with their acting choices to salvage his characterization, and I love them for that.
So youre saying Loki uses magic to dry his clothes as soon as he is wet (cos he obviously cares about his looks) but he cant do the same for the rest of the series, not even when he is wounded or all dirty and has sweatmarks everywhere. Ok.
And that’s really the only time I can remember him using his magic too?
Like, you’re telling me that our Loki, the Loki from 2012 Avengers is a magic user and extremely proficient in it to the point where Classic Loki can make Asgard alone, but you never show him doing amazing feats with said magical abilities?
Okay.
MOOD
Nah for real. The moment they said “your magic does not work here” I was already throwing hands.
That wouldnt be such a problem. They did the same to Wanda. But unlike Loki, she was allowed to show her magic in the rest of the show and open all her powers at the end. While Loki…I dont even wanna go there. @l-astre
…I’m very much afraid that even stopping to care for his look is considered “a sign of growth”. And the same goes for not using his powers, with the exception of learning something from Sylvie (what humility!) or defending Sylvie (see? He loves her and has learned to use her powers for the greater good. !)
In the series Loki has gotten worse at everything, at every aspect. Hair oily as never before (like Tom hasnt washed it the entire time they were shooting), he stopped wearing decent clothes, he no longer walks like God, even his voice isnt as hoarse as it used to be, his intellect is gone, he is a trickster but he doesnt trick one person, etc. And Im not even gonna go into the fact he doesnt use magic even after 10 years in MCU and how he braggs he is 10 steaps ahead of them all and we find out there is no plan and no scheme and that he wasnt (unlike in other movies)
He has gotten worse at everything and its all supposed to be growth. Growth should be becoming better. In Avengers for example he switches outfits when he proudly walks in Stuttgart with scepter. He could have conjured himself a new one in series finale but with humble expression on his face not so proud like in The avengers. They could have done that and that would truly be growth.
Loki got the opposite in the series. It was regression.
This!
“stopping to care for his look is considered a sign of growth” — that’s literally a sign of depression or otherwise deteriorating mental health we were taught to watch out for in my psychiatry course.
It’s often misenterpreted as “psychs will pronounce you mad if you stop conforming to stereotypes/care about what other people think about you” but in fact this series is a good example of what this criterion actually means. Unwashed greasy hair, slumped posture; no attempts to replace dirty, torn clothes; rolling with whatever option was imposed upon them by external circumstances while the person used to have strong opinions about their appearance before — all that paints a picture of giving up on taking basic care of himself, not letting go of excessive vanity or whatever other bs they are trying to push onto the viewers.
Too bad the writers for the series utterly suck at all mental-health-related issues, because what they are unintentionally and so clumsily showing would’ve still have more potential for exploration than what they are trying to tell.
Sometimes it feels like the interviews and commentary belong to some parallel universe and talk about a completely different product from there that we never got to see. The Larry series variant, if you will.
This is what I felt and the fact that they call his depressed state “therapy” and “growth” after BREAKING him to that point is so disturbing to me. We are actively having a dystopian view of a “healthy state of mind” pushed on us, while the creators act like they created a paradise in interviews.
I don’t know WHAT universe the show fans and the creators live in, but the Loki WE watched, got WORSE did NOT experience growth and I’ll swear on my Bachelor’s in Science Psychology degree on that.
True. Im no psychologist but it happened to me. I was suicidal. And around that time I just put my hair in ponytail,washed it barely, me otherwise fashion lover who loves coming up with various outfits, stopped caring about what i wear, stopped shaving my legs, i showered only once a week,normally I try to walk like a damn model, show off my shoes and hips, but at that time I just…walked.
And after a long process and these dark times when I realizes I was not a piece of shit and that it wasnt that bad and I had no reason to kill myself, I returned to my old me, even better. I changed most of my wardrobe, tried new haircut, I was no longer spending all my free time laying on the couch and I went out and enjoyed every small thing. I went thru this so seeing Loki in the series was like seeing myself during my depression period and to have writers calling this growth and what Mobius did to Loki,which is what my abusive ex used to do to me, a therapy, makes me sick to my stomach and feel…helpless.
I feel like Im shouting off the top of my lungs “he is showing all signs of depression,I know,Ive been there” and 5 people here me and thousands just walk by and ignore it or think “bitch just desperate for attention’. Thats how it feels to be in mcu fandom, as a survivor, seeing what happened to me happening to my favourite character too and fans and writers calling it good. His abuse even got physical on numerous occasions and people still dont recognize it as abuse and laugh at it. Im gonna go into extreme now, but this is everytime someone commits a suicide. Signs were all there but people were ignoring them or refused to see them. Cos "its not that deep”, right?
Edited: btw when I learnt my value, I didnt point at my chest with tears in my eyes “I cant be trusted” or any of that negative shit. I literally smiled and put on my newly delivered jacket and went out. In the finale Loki looks like in worst part of depression.
All of this ^^
As an abuse and depression survivor myself, those scenes ended up massively triggering me. It doesn’t help that I relate to Loki too and even though Larry isn’t Loki, it’s still triggering as fuck to see shit like that. It’s like they’re literally telling us through him that we don’t matter and we deserve to either take it and act like a doormat, or be vilified for the rest of our lives.
Every word.
I have lived with depression my whole life. Sometimes it looks okay from the outside, but sometimes it looks exactly like how Loki looked at the end of the show. And that’s not growth. That’s worse than what we saw at the end of Thor 1. At least Loki was fighting then. He stopped fighting in the show. He just accepted being treated like garbage. And then he actually believed that Mobius and Sylvie were right about him. That’s rock bottom.
I knew from the second that the show didn’t acknowledge how traumatizing it was to see your whole life and how you died and then didn’t offer any true therapy that it was not going to be a fun time.
This too! He just freaking watched Thanos fracturing his neck and dying and…noone talks about it for the rest of the show, how he feels about the fact the person who tortured him and then sent him to Earth kills him at the end, nothing. In episode 2 he is already laughing and reading a magazine and dancing (the scene was deleted but they did shoot it). I never saw worse writing. @scoobycool9
First thing we see Sylvie doing in a series - murdering by burning people alive.
Last thing we see her doing - murder.
How is she a hero,no idea.
You made me think how it is about other characters:
(Written from memory, might include mistakes)
1. Loki (antihero)
-first appearance (Thor): encouraging Thor
-last appearance (Thor): spying on Selvig
-last appearance (IW): getting killed
-Last appearance (Loki): getting overwhelmed by the differences of the TVA
2. Thor (hero)
-first appearance (Thor): being nervous about the coronation
-Last appearance (Thor): thinking about Jane
-last appearance (EG): giving the throne to Valkyrie and joining the Guardians (not sure if that was really his last moment. I tried to banish EG from my memory)
3. Thanos (villain)
-first appearance (the avengers): being revealed as the man behind the invasion
- last appearance (EG): being dusted by iron man to prevent him killing millions (again).
So, well, You are kinda correct that her portrayal so far starts and ends on scenes that are much more violent than the ones of the heroes and resemble those of the villains more. ♀️ I don’t get what Waldron and Kate were thinking, building her arc.
Whole Loki series I was waiting for Loki’s master plan to unreveal. To find out he is tricking everyone. Something interesting. But nothing came. There was no plan, no scheme, no scam, no tricks.
Show about a trickster included no tricks.
When he said in ep2 he wants to overthrone the time keepers - that was loki. Thats what series should have been about. Or in ep3when he says TVA is gonna let all people on Lamentis die. Real Loki would find a way out of Lamentis. Not get arrested by tva again like an idiot. Sylvie too. They are Loki variants, smart tricksters and they get arrested again like fools?
Waldron has no idea who Loki is. So doesnt Kate, a big so called fan.
Every Single Issue I Have With S*lki (It’s Not Just The Selfcest)
Here goes. I threatened to post this a few days ago and never did, but I just saw a s*lki stan Twitter account claim that Loki caring about Sylvie more than the whole multiverse was a Good And Romantic thing and it pushed me over the fucking edge, so now you all have to read this. I’ve divided it into categories cause there’s just THAT much.
OOC Bullshit
•First and foremost, no amount of mental gymnastics you do will ever make me believe that this specificLoki- the one that just invaded New York, that just came off a year of Thanos Torture, that just got done being influenced by the sceptre, that was literally in the middle of a crisis already, and then on top of that went through all the trauma of Ep 1- would even be worried about a romantic relationship. That would be the furthest thing from his mind. Go back and watch how he acted in Avengers- you think that guy would abandon his previous mission to become a snivelling simp for a girl he’d just met 3 days prior? Yeah, there’s no universe in which that makes sense.
•“It’s very in character for Loki to fall in love with himself lololol-“ NO, it’s literally not. Out of all the characters in the mcu, I don’t think I can think of anyone that genuinely hates themselves more than Loki. He even referred to all his other male variants as “monsters” and said meeting them was “a nightmare” in this series. He’s got so much self-loathing, plus the fact that he genuinely thinks himself to be an evil backstabbing scourge- so there’s no evidence at all suggesting that he would ever develop a fondness for, or even be inclined to trust, another version of himself, after only knowing them for 3 days.
• Building on that, the whole concept of Loki falling in love with a version of himself just feeds into the annoying ass misconception that he’s a narcissist. No matter which way you stack it, he’s not. If you’re referring to NPD, he doesn’t fit the criteria, and if you’re saying “narcissist” just as a slang term meaning “selfish and arrogant”, that still doesn’t accurately describe him. But when creators like Waldron and Herron do things like having him fall in love with himself, it makes it so much easier for casual viewers to think that he is.
Shitty LGBT Rep
• It’s kinda sus that Loki’s are allegedly genderfluid and yet the only female-presenting variant we see (and apparently the only female-presenting variant there is, cause the male Loki’s all seemed unfamiliar with the concept) is treated as some kind of mind-bogglingly special paradox. Also very sus that, out of all the Loki variants, the one our Loki falls in love with just so happens to be the only femaleone. What a coincidence.
• The fact that the creators of the show went around bragging about Loki’s bisexuality and Marvel purposefully (lbr) allowed stories about Loki possibly having a male love interest to circulate, specifically enticing queer viewers to watch the show (you know, the definition of queerbaiting), and then instead of having a male love interest (Loki was the first queer main character, so it was the perfect opportunity) they gave us *gestures to this dumpster fire* this…it’s just a middle finger to LGBT fans. The fact that they would rather have this relationship with all its myriad of problems than have a gay relationship is just……. Very telling.
•While him being with a woman obviously doesn’t refute his bisexuality, the fact that they showed/talked about him being interested in 3 different women (flight attendant, Sylvie, Sif) and never even hinted at him being attracted to a man, definitely makes it seem like they were trying to cover up his bisexuality to smooth things over with the more homophobic viewers. You know? It’s like “I know you’re pissed that we sorta confirmed Loki as bi, so we promise we’ll never mention it again! Or even hint at it! As a matter of fact, we’ll give him lots of female lovies and make him seem as straight as possible! That’ll take your mind off of that horrible crumb of queer rep, right? Please please please keep giving us your money!!!”
• Aside from all the other issues, at its core, the biggest reason why I think I’m so irritated with s*lki is that it took one of the most interesting, complex, and diverse characters in cinema atm and squished him into a tired ass unnecessary heteronormative subplot…. Like literally every. single. other. protagonist. ever. Loki is such a unique character, and it’s so so so incredibly disappointing that they stuck him into that same boring cookie cutter romance that happens to every other character in every other movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disservice, and it’s honestly just not compelling or entertaining at all.
Thematic Issues Galore
•His arc didn’t need a romance. With anyone. It was unnecessary and it didn’t make sense plot-wise. In fact, one of the reasons he was my fav prior to this was because he was the only big-name mcu character whose story wasn’t muddied-up by a romance that didn’t need to be there. So much for that.
•He wasn’t emotionally ready for a romantic relationship with anyone. Hell, just a genuine friendship would’ve been pushing it for him at this point. He was in such a bad state that any relationship he got into would’ve been toxic and unhealthy for both him and the other person, and it doesn’t make sense why the writers would want to put him in one when there were so many cons and essentially no pros (other than “Uwu aren’t they cute together”).
•Sylvie’s character in general was unnecessary and Loki’s character was robbed just by her being there. The whole show became about her post-Ep 2. They spent most of the time giving her backstory, building her up, telling us how awesome she is, trying to convince us to like her, etc when what they really needed to be doing was building Loki up- cause I gotta say, if I had to describe TVA!Loki in a few words, they would be Flat, Boring, and Weak.
•The romance overtakes the plot. They spend time portraying their supposed connection that could’ve been spent adding depth and complexity to literally any of the characters. They make the big Nexus Event them giving each other googly eyes on Lamentis when it could’ve been so many other way more profound things that speak to the fundamental nature of Loki’s. They have the climax of the finale be “oh no she betrayed him to kill He Who Remains” when it could’ve been something way more compelling (Loki having a moral crisis over whether or not to kill HWR, Loki contemplating the state of the multiverse and weighing the pros and cons of freedom vs order, Loki looking into some What If situations and getting emotional about what could’ve been regarding his family, Loki realising the gravity of HWR’s offer and finally coming to terms with how important he is to the universal cycle, etc etc). The entire plot suffered in favour of a romance that half of us didn’t even want.
•It essentially reduced all of Loki’s potential character growth down to “He did it for his crush.” He seemed to at least have some motivations of his own in Ep 1-2 (feeble as they were) but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, literally every action he took was just him being a simp for her. Why did he lie in the interrogation? To try to protect Sylvie. Why did he fight the minutemen and Timekeepers? To survive kinda, but mostly cause it was important to Sylvie. Why did he get pruned? Cause he got distracted trying to confess his crush to Sylvie. Why did he try to get out of The Void? Cause he thought Sylvie needed him. Why did he stay in The Void? Cause Sylvie was staying. Why did he try to enchant Alioth? Cause Sylvie told him to. Why did the multiverse get cracked open, leading to an infinite number of Kangs waging war on all of existence? Cause Loki didn’t wanna hurt Sylvie in their fight at the Citadel and then get distracted by her kissing him. It’s uninteresting and honestly pretty embarrassing.
• Throughout their “relationship arc” the writers do their absolute damndest to convince us that we should like Sylvie more than Loki. And you know what? It’s the most hypocritical shit I’ve ever seen. They preach and preach about how Sylvie’s life has been so difficult/we should feel bad for her/she had it so bad/poor poor sylvie/she had it SO much worse than pampered prince Loki…. But then they never even touch on any of Loki’s trauma of hardships (the ones that have been ignored for literally 3 movies now). They frame Sylvie as a good person and a Freedom Fighter after she spent literal decades/centuries mass-murdering brainwashed TVA agents and showing exactly zero remorse for it….. but then they make it their mission to constantly remind us that Loki is a terrible person and constantly put him in situations where he’s forced to acknowledge his wrongdoings/show remorse/admit to how “evil” he is for being a mass murderer for like 2 years. They show him on-screen having a wider range of powers than her, and perpetuate his whole shtick of being a “master manipulator” or whatever….. But then they make Sylvie “the brawn” more competent, intelligent, and physically capable than him. Tell me how it’s a good thing for a ship to be so narratively biased toward one character.
Missed Opportunities
•If they absolutely had to have a romance subplot, then they could’ve paired Loki with one of the characters that have already been established OR one of the characters that were a big part of the whole TVA storyline anyway. It would’ve been so interesting if they’d revealed that Loki had a history with some of the players from previous films (Sif and Fandral both come to mind). It also would’ve been really interesting if they’d given Loki a love interest that actually had some allegiance to the TVA as a whole (Mobius maybe, but not necessarily. It also could’ve been Renslayer or B-15). Hell, imo it would’ve been cool if they’d followed through with that “See you again someday” line that he said to the flight attendant in Ep 1. ALL of these characters have way more chemistry with him than Sylvie, and they were also already relevant to the plot without wasting half the show to give background info on them.
•If they absolutely had to have a hetero-presenting love story involving an enchantress-type figure, then there’s a whole Enchantress (Amora) that was actually Loki’s love interest in the comics. Plus, fans have been screaming for Amora to appear in the mcu for years. Plus, Tom literally pitched an Amora/Loki storyline way back in 2012-13. Also, Lorelei (another enchantress) is also one of Loki’s love interests in the comics, and she already exists in the mcu (she was on Agents of SHIELD). There were several different established characters for them to choose from. Creating a whole knew amalgamation of a character and going with the “she’s a Loki variant” storyline was just completely unnecessary and made no sense.
•They completely robbed us of a Chaos Twins dynamic. Had they handled Sylvie better and not forced her and Loki to smooch, the two of them could’ve had a really really complex and interesting sibling relationship. Loki could’ve stepped into Thor’s shoes and sort of used that new role to gain some self importance, and Sylvie could’ve finally had somebody to look out for her/teach her magic/be there for her. It would’ve been very aesthetically pleasing, the vibes would’ve been out of this world, it would’ve been way more profound than this bs, and frankly it would’ve been much more entertaining to watch.
•Loki’s relationship (read: obsession) with Sylvie completely overshadows all Loki’s other relationships in the show. Loki and Mobius were literally the focal point of the series in Ep 1-2, but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, they barely had any interactions with each other, and Mobius pretty much faded to the background entirely. Loki had the beginnings of a pretty interesting antagonistic relationship with Renslayer (with her wanting him pruned, then arguing with Mobius that he couldn’t be trusted), but after Sylvie showed up the dynamic shifted to focus on the history between her and Ravonna. Loki and B-15 started off very badly and openly disliked each other throughout Ep 1-2, and then in the end of Ep 2, Loki showed a little bit of concern for her when she was possessed, hinting that they might be inching toward a reconciliation- especially considering how obvious it was that Loki was gonna uncover the TVA’s sins eventually. There was so much potential for him to be the one to give her her memories back and convince her to change sides, but no, of course that honor went to Sylvie. In fact, after Sylvie showed up, Loki and B-15 never even spoke to each other again.
Various S*lki Fails
•If they were trying to convince us that this affection was mutual, they completely failed. There’s nothing I’ve seen that even hints at Sylvie feeling the same way about Loki that he does about her. At most, I’d say she has a slight endearment to him. She finds him likeable and she’s grudgingly fond of him, but she definitely isn’t in love with the guy. Maybe she thinks he’s cute and hopes that he gets out of this mess alright, but her mission obviously comes before him- whereas, it’s been confirmed multiple times that Loki cares about her above anything else. She doesn’t trust him, she looks at him like he’s an incompetent fool half the time, she shows little to no reaction during most of his confession moments, and she kissed him as a means to distract him so that she could get him out of her way. Look, all I’m saying is, when you get into a relationship where one of you is way more invested than the other, it never ends well.
•This goes without saying for a lot of us, but the selfcest is just straight up odd and cringey. If you’re cool with that sort of thing, fine! People can ship what they want! But don’t pretend it’s not at least a little bit uncomfortable. Yes, I know they’re not technically siblings so it’s not technically incest, and they’re also not technically the exact same person, but they’re similar enough that it makes things weird. And yes I know selfcest can’t happen in real life, so there’s no way to judge it morally, but neither can most of the other stuff that happens in these shows/movies (the Snap, Loki destroying jotunheim, superhero with powers being held accountable, mind control) and yet we still find ways to judge their morality, because they all mirror real-world events. (The snap= genocide; Loki destroying Jotunheim= bombing other countries; superhero accountability= weapons accountability; mind control= grooming and coercion). And lbr the closest real-world mirror to two versions of the same person (who may or may not share DNA, family, backgrounds, physical and emotion characteristics) being romantically involved with one another is incest. And you can be ok with that if you want- that’s your prerogative- but don’t get pissy just cause a lot of us are squicked out by it.
•The whole mirror metaphor (learning self love via each other) thing just fell completely flat. First of all, having Loki learn to love himself by looking at someone who mirrors him did not, in any way shape or form, require them to be romantically involved. But they were. Of course. Secondly, the creators have contradicted themselves so many times on whether Loki and Sylvie are the same or not, that it doesn’t even really register to the viewer that the mirroring thing was what they were going for. Finally, Loki and Sylvie are shown to have so little in common- and to have only the most bare minimum of similarities personality-wise- that it doesn’t even make sense that Loki would “learn to love himself through loving her”. Like? They’re nothing alike. So how would he make the connection that he himself is actually pretty cool, based on her alone? There’s virtually nothing in her that reflects him.
•I know the objective of the entire show was to convince us of how awesome and unique Sylvie is, but honestly her relationship with Loki just did the opposite. A hallmark of a Mary Sue is having her constantly upstage the male lead, and then having him instantly fall madly in love with her anyway. And that’s.. exactly what happened here. Everything they’re doing to try to force her character to be more stan-able is really just forcing her to look more like their self-insert OC. Which is exactly what she is. It would’ve been so much more satisfying if she didn’t have to try so hard to look cool, if they didn’t have to try so hard to make her backstory tear-inducing, if they didn’t have to turn our protagonist into a snivelling simp just to prove how incredible she supposedly is. Very much #GirlBoss energy and we all know how performative and cheap that is.
•The entire thing was too rushed, there was too little build-up, and it was nowhere near believable. As stated above, it’s ridiculously unlikely that Loki would canonically even be interested in Sylvie, and this show did nothing to explain why he was. He just suddenly was. There was nothing they showed us as viewers that would justify a guy as closed-off and preoccupied as Loki falling head-over-heels for a girl he just met. Their was no explanation, no big revelation, no reasoning, it just… kinda happened. And I’m also severely skeptical of any love story that has the characters go in this deep after only 3 45-minute episodes of exposition.
(Seriously,click that link if unaware: it contains Waititi’s own quotes in official interviews beforeDisney’s PR teams cracked down on him and others, later and since. Several are direct scans of the printed articles.)
There’salso the erasure of the performance and importance of the performances of previous actors in those previous phases along with the story they blatanty lieabout from episode one of the series (including one of the few amazing POC actors in that era of the MCU; including Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje who actually played Kurse. As well as the continuation of complete disregard for not only how Frigga actually died, the story of every Phase before it (See this post detailing SOME of the disregard and erasure of POC representation in the MCU’s Thor the Dark World in particular,in this link.)
Men as victims - what makes the reactions to the Loki show so telling
Recently, I noticed something concerning on Twitter. There are several categories of people who liked and support the Loki show (2021), varying from casual fans who knew nothing about Loki before, over fans of the general MCU who perceived Loki mainly as a villain in The Avengers (2012), to rabid show fans who generally call everyone a misogynist who dares to admit they didn’t enjoy the show. Now, while I normally find some kind of common ground with people who are part of the first two groups, the last one belongs to a special kind of people. I noticed their habit to turn to verbal abuse quite fast (like so many others), but now there is something more they have in common: most of them believe and supportAmber Heard.
There are people on Twitter who love the show (by loving Sylvie as a proxy) to a degree it becomes meaningless to them if they thus support torture, abuse, and other crimes that are framed as morally acceptable. And they treat the Heart vs Depp trial just the same, attacking both Depp and people who believe him. They do so by utilizing ad hominem attacks, like calling people misogynists, social rights warriors, or men’s rights warriors, abusers, and toxic. They are trying to refute rather by character defamation instead of arguments. A frequently used move is to switch the abuser/victim dynamic and call everyone speaking up for Loki or Depp a victim blamer. To support their claims they apply other manipulative tactics, such as twisting facts.
Here is one example: after the show aired many fans of Loki (the character, not the show) pointed out that the relationship resembled autogynephilia, a harmful hypothesis that claimed trans women would want to adapt their gender because they were attracted by the idea of themselves, but as women. The pro-series fans claim to point out this would be actually transphobic (reversing the accusation), citing an article written by Julia Serrano (a famous trans-women who works in science). But if you check what she actually said about the matter, the article does not support the claim. She argued a dislike of the relationship could be caused by subconscious transphobia because people might perceive Sylvie as trans since she is the only female Loki variant. When genderfluid fans pointed out to her on Twitter that they did not feel comfortable with the Loki show, Serrano herself cited a tweet where she points out the flaws of the genderfluid representation herself. In conclusion, 1) fantasies about one’s own body but of another gender are normal, not limited to trans-people and not to be looked down upon! 2) presenting the relationship in the show in a way it will inspire discrimination against non-binary people because it reminds us of the harmful claims some “scientists” have made in the past is not a good representation. 3) pointing out this fact is in support of GF fans, and certainly not transphobic.
At the same time, men face much greater problems being believed when they get abused by women than the other way ‘round. Still, those people close their eyes from the abuse and support the abusers and in case of the Loki series, the framing of torture and abuse as being just. (While I am not a fan of Sylvie, since Loki was mainly disparaged to make her look superior, she is not mainly responsible for his abuse. That would be Mobius doing the death threats and the gaslighting, and ordering the groin kicking.)
Now why is this important? I think there is a social current happening we should be aware of. Women who hate men just because of their gender, who fight for increased discrimination under the guise of feminism and even pretending to act to protect trans-people. This is just as bad as patriarchy.
So, if you ever happened to be in a situation you were discriminated against and wanted the support of someone who would be believed where you wouldn’t you should fight this social current. I recommend doing so by asking if they liked the show. If they do, explain the torture, the transphobic representation, and the disparaging, and ask again. If they still stand behind it, that’s a bad sign.
On a side note: 1) those people are giving both feminism and LGBTQIA+ supporters a bad name, and I am getting annoyed by that. 2) I agree that the public defamation of Heard is not ok, and needs to stop. For one thing we should be over lynching in 2022, and secondly, it only contributes to the hardening of the fronts. Instead, we need to think about how we see people who have been convicted and that it is still a crime to abuse them.
Loki vs Spiderman No Way Home on tackling the Multiverse
This post will contain spoilers for Spiderman NWH!
I’m gonna need Feige to entrust certain writers on themes that are gonna be touched upon in movies later on to be used in their series. Let me explain.
Spider-Man No Way Home really displayed how BAD and HORRENDOUS the Loki show actually is. Like, plot and writing wise, the Loki show has really, really aged badly. So I’m sitting here wondering, since technically NWH explores the concept of variants (a lot better than a whole ass show was supposed to), why didn’t the writers of NWH dealt with the series instead of giving it to an inexperienced writer/director? Genuine question.
NWH made the concept of the multiverse a lot more digestible than a series was supposed to in a way where if you didn’t watch What if ? or Loki (especially), you could understand it…because in this case Doctor Strange admitted that it’s a concept that he still doesn’t know a lot about. So it makes the audience not only equally curious but entangles them to learn about it at the same time with them. But as someone who DID watch Loki, I can tell the writer(s) has some really odd ideas on handling the concept of multiverses and variants.
What I loved about NWH concept of multiverse is that there was no “sacred timeline”. Loki’s idea of Kang keeping a sacred timeline is very flawed simply because to keep it in one “line”, there shouldn’t have been any variant drastically different from our Loki to the point they posed a risk of tampering with Kang’s desires of keeping a “sacred timeline” (examples like Boastful Loki, Sylvie, Alligator Loki etc). Branches that come from that sacred timeline should be mostly the same except a few environmental changes/decisions where it causes the flow of time to expand. I reiterate this because the Loki show contradicts itself. TVA would go as far as prune someone for being late on their way to work; we’ve seen them arrest normal civilians who you could tell were scared and confused.
NWH concept of the multiverse is very matter of factly and unified; the Peters were variants of each other [which by the way, this concept of the Peters being variants makes a LOT more sense]that are in a way technically not related by DNA but are in essence still the same person, just not the same individual since they come from DIFFERENT universes and NOT a BRANCH of the SAME UNIVERSE like Loki does. Their universal destinies were meant to be as Spidermen/Peter Parker. And it was done in less than three hours. In which I feel like that’s what the Loki series tried to do; to make the Lokis feel like their own person/treat the name as if a title of some sort but they of course failed in that aspect.
When you compared all that said with a lame, fascist organization, that apparently previously captured Thanos and vampires before but was easily defeated by being bitten by an eight year old Asgardian, made by a (black ) dictator pruning branches of the same timeline, but then have said characters contradict the existing ways the multiverse works in your show then… especially when you have a writer and director going back and forth not knowing what to exactly describe Sylvie as…
Oh and speaking of Sylvie, so apparently Marvel CAN do siblings of the same variant relationships but it couldn’t be done with Loki and Sylvie ? I mean they kinda had the same amount of time together. They could have fallen in love (since apparently it can take less than 12 hours). Ah wait ? You say the are MALE? Wait one of them in underage ? No wait pause. Is it because they are loners and never had siblings so they related to each other more easily making the dynamic a lot more wholesome? Huh would you look at that. No self cest. Not even a hint. Interesting….
My expectations on dealing with the multiverse shenanigans are really high now. Especially with the knowledge that it CAN be done well. I don’t know how they’re going to go forward with Multiverse of Madness since Micheal Waldron, yes THE Micheal Waldron from the LOKI show I kept shitting on is the HEADWRITER. I’m also curious on how they are going to handle season two.
Note: The following is a lengthy, deeply personal reflection in which I hash out my thoughts on Loki, the series, and the fandom. It contains negativity. A lot of negativity. I’ve tagged this appropriately, so if you’re the kind of person who absolutely cannot handle negatively at any of the above, please do us all a favor and keep scrolling. I’m not looking to start fights, convince anyone to change their minds, or tell people they’re wrong for liking the show. This is intended only as my own views written for my own benefit. I’ll even hide the negative stuff for easier avoidance. If you choose to read on anyway and don’t like what you see, that’s on 100% on you.
I don’t really hate S ylvie. I don’t care about her. But saying I hate her is pretty handy shorthand for “I hate everything her character stands for since she’s a microcosm of everything I hate about the show”. Namely, that she’s the main character of it. She’s the one that drives the plot! The writers were only excited about her! Everything revolves around her! Only she is important! Her pain, her motives, her tragedy her her her her. It’d be the same damn thing if she was a man or even idk, a horse.
Loki gets relegated to being a punching bag and sidekick in his own damn show. None of his issues matter, none of his pain. He’s just a pathetic narcissist loser who runs after others like a stupid puppy. It’s even explicitly stated in the narrative so many times! “This isn’t your story!” “It’s not about you!” “A flea on the back of a dragon!” What should have been thematic statements for the narrative to argue against were proven perfectly true!
So like, forgive me if I’m not enthusiastic about a character who stole the spotlight from what should’ve been Loki’s show. A show I wanted and desperately hoped to be good. But no, I just got punched in the face for 6 episodes while they told me over and over again I was pathetic for ever caring about him.
It’s not fucking “subversion of gender roles” or what the fuck ever. It would’ve been maybe if S ylvie had always supposed to have been the main character. But she wasn’t. She just completely wrenched the spotlight away from Loki for whatever reason. I’m just honestly baffled by how many Lokifans are perfectly ok with this.
It’s not being a girlboss to completely take over the protagonist role in a show that was supposed to be about one character. Like, imagine the reactions if Wandavision had ended up being all about Darcy after episode 3 and how stupid and pathetic Wanda was at magic. Or if FatWS had pivoted in the second episode to be all about Walker and his pain, with Sam and Bucky tagging along, the narrative showing how much better Walker was than them at every turn.
Like??? I don’t know how many more ways I can say this. I just…I’m tired. This fandom isn’t fun anymore and barely has been since 2017. It’s just one pile of shit from canon on one side and another pile of shit from the fandom. Both sides of fandom fighting over a dry bone while disney gloats.
people who liked the Loki show stop trying to psychoanalyze those who didn’t challenge 2k21
I don’t know how many times it’s been said, but we list out our reasons for disliking it in detail on our blogs and yet again I keep seeing takes about how we’re just too ~traumatized~ to ~appreciate~ the ~healing~ Loki goes through the show.
first off: citation fucking needed that anything he went through in that shit show is fucking healing*
second off: do y’all even realize how condescending and patronizing y’all sound when you say shit like that?
*the only “healing” he did in that show was for problems the show made up and then “solved” by constantly abusing him until he admitted to his “problems” and if that’s your definition of healing, then I don’t even know. he did not make friends in that show and his ““““““romance”““““” is just him pining for someone who doesn’t give a shit about him (all the “narcissism” and failed metaphors about self-love aside [though which is it? is s ylvie a Loki variant or her own person???? can’t have it both ways for the metaphor to work!!! and yet this particular goal post has so many free miles accumulated from all the moving it does it can take a thousand trips around the world without paying a cent!!!])
You have a queer man who is turned into a fucking gay man stereotype who is abused, humiliated, and bullied. You have the TVA who are so Nazi coded it’s ridiculous being framed as good guys, every POC being framed as a bad guy. You have a disgusting relationship that plays on the transphobic/queerphobic stereotype of autogynephilia and a female character who is a walking, breathing embodiment of every single stereotype about Strong Female Characters and feminists that incels, MRAs, and other right wing men have about feminists and other women who aren’t June Cleaver homemakers.
FFS.
Sorry, I had to say it.
Yeah, that jumped out at me, too. The Loki series is many, many things but progressive is not one of them. And even if it were progressive, that would not be a reason to hate it.
That and “body positive fisticuffs” which was just mean.
I wasn’t even going to get started on that. I have no idea what they mean by it, and I don’t even want to know.
I received yet another demanding anon, asking me why I’m not posting more fics or updating my WIPs. Idk anon, read my pinned post maybe. You’ll get an idea.
Plus, I’ve gotten two separate anons telling me that hating on the Loki series will get me blacklisted from the fandom (I suspect it’s the same anon lol). That people will no longer read my fics. Blah blah.
Oh well, poor me, I suppose. /Sarcasm
The fandom’s whim affects me so much that I’ll have to cater to them, huh?
Well, anon, sadly for you, idgaf. All my fucks have evaporated the same way Loki’s character evaporated in the series. I will hate on it till it pleases me. Because venting about it at least gives me some closure.
And also, I’ll unfollow as many people as it takes so that my personal Tumblr experience isn’t completely ruined by the series’ stans.
I’ve come to a point where I just need to see someone reblog something pro series (especially sylki gifs and stills without even tagging them) to make me hit the unfollow button.
My patience is thin these days; it happens when one is unwell and stressed. I’m already partly out of the fandom anyway. Season 2 will likely have me go on a hiatus, because I know how annoying the pro Loki series fandom will get.
I may not stop writing for the og 2011-13 era Loki, because it’s a compulsion I’m not yet immune to. But yeah, my fandom interaction days are coming to an end, I know.
It saddens me, because I’ve been here many years, writing fics and metas in bulk. But in the end, I have to choose my mental health and self care over rude stans and entitled anons.
Me,looking for that scene/scenes with the explanation:
So we can’t even trust what Tom says…well, I already knew that actually considering some of the very questionable things he’s said in interviews about Loki’s character and some of the abuse apologism he’s engaged in (seriously man, please pick up a psychology book).
So don’t believe a damn word of what any of them say about season 2, guys. Not Tom, not the new directors, definitely not Eric Martin. It’ll all be designed to give you hope that season 2 will be better than 1. It won’t be. It’ll just be more of the same.
Please don’t watch it. Disney needs to get the message that this crap is not ok.
You know,there is a difference between not saying anything because you cant and straight up lying. Which he did. He lied. No idea why. There was no magic,no opponents,and not a word about horns. Why he chose to lie stunns me. To keep us on board? To make us watch?
Its not only disasterous series that made fall out of love with Loki and lose interest in MCU all together,its also Tom’s words,his lies and what he said about Loki that made me fall out of love with him,he lost my trust. He repeatedly said things that contradict stuff he’s been saying about Loki for years.
Remember that 2 seconds long teaser of Loki with flaming sword? We all thought it was gonna be Loki facing on of those formidable opponents and that Laevetainn was gonna play big role in series. None of that happened. It was a teaser designed to hype us and make us think Loki is actually doing something big,later it turned out it was Sylvie’s moment. Teaser was a lie too.
But Im going off topic here. Tom could have just not say anything. He chose to lie. Or does he think those scrumbs,that was enough of Loki’s magic? Or did he magically see somewhere in those scenes backstory of Loki’s horns? No. He lied.
Personally I think it’s money. He’s under contract with Disney and his paycheck hinges on him complying with whatever that contract says, and I’m very sure that among other things in that contract is what he can and can’t say to the press. If Disney tells him to say it, he does it, otherwise he doesn’t get paid. That’s best case scenario. Worse case scenario, Loki dies again but this time it really is permanent and his role in the MCU is taken over by Sylvie or another actor if Sophia decides she doesn’t want to do it (unlikely, since the role has made her into a star).
I know this is very veeeeery much a speculation, but Herron said that from the beginning they were planning for Loki to fall in love with his female version. They built the whole story around this. Then she reccommended Sophia for the role,without Sophia even auditioning. So this is only my speculation,but I think Kate lied she was Loki fan,to get the job and help her buddie Sophia launch her career. And I know now Kate lied because there is no way Loki fan would say things she says and let all those things happen in series. So because all of this,I highly doubt Sophia would reject the role of the only Loki in the future. She literaly had at least 2 people to push her where she is. Again,all speculation about Kate,but many sign do point that way @littleabriel-blog
Herron and Sophia are very close friends and I already knew from several sources that Sophia got the role through nepotism. Which is no surprise, because the woman has no talent whatsoever.
As for the plans to have Loki fall for a female version of himself, that’s no surprise. From the things Kate has posted on her Twitter it’s easy to conclude that she has a fetish. Which is fine, more power to her, whatever floats her boat, but FFS leave that crap to fanfic please. Not everyone is going to look kindly on your fetishes, especially when they’re something like incest. There’s wanting to indulge your fetishes, but then there’s just a complete lack of awareness that most people are not going to share them nor are they going to appreciate being exposed to them, especially when it’s through a mainstream TV show with a fan favorite character.
And yeah, I know people are going to go “What about GOT” BUT the difference there is that Jamie and Cersei’s relationship was never, ever framed as a healthy and positive thing. Both the books and the show (at least, up until the final few episodes) took great pains to make it clear that the pairing was toxic and twisted AF. Jon and Dany were never framed as healthy either…as shitty as the writers were, it was still made clear that the pairing was problematic in many, many ways.
And too many people forget how the myth of Narcissus ended, with him wasting away and dying a very slow death all alone. Selfcest has never been framed as healthy or positive…not until this damn show.
Yup. The series single handedly killed my faith in Tom. Before that, I used to trust him with Loki. His interviews about Loki were so interesting, I used to love watching them. (Though they were not always on point about the psychology, I admit.)
But lately, it seems like he’s a robot spewing a predetermined script. It just feels fake and repetitive, and chock full of lies as the op shows with full receipts. It broke my heart, honestly, because I didn’t expect this from him. There was absolutely no need for these lies. The hype around Loki was already so big, just by his sheer popularity.
Tbh I think he has lost the passion and love for Loki. And he came back to play him only because the money was good. Still, choosing to actively lie to the audience, many of whom have been Loki fans for years, was bad form. I’m not sure what he was aiming to achieve from it, but it certainly made me lose much respect for him. I don’t watch his interviews anymore, because his inauthentic responses grate on my senses.
As for Herron and SDM, yeah, nepotism works for them, I guess. Most of the audience doesn’t even realize or know that SDM got this role because Herron recommended her. And everyone in the production, direction and writing brought their kinks into the show instead of using the opportunity for making something of quality. Goes to show how Marvel has deteriorated. Especially with a popular queer character like Loki. They’re willing to depict selfcesty abusive relationships as healthy, genital bashing and battery as comedy, and torture and interrogation as therapy, but they will absolutely not depict Loki as genderfluid or bisexual (that stupid one line does not count). And I hold every person in Loki’s creative team responsible and accountable for this shit show, including Tom.
