I got about halfway through rewatching CATWS again and I keep seeing all the lines they’ve buried as foreshadowing for Zola’s reveal and I just can’t see it all as unintentional (even if they’ve tried now for 8 years to wind it all back).
One of Steve’s major internal conflicts in CATWS is “trust”. Right at the start, he makes a few humorous jabs at Sam, but as soon as he feels Sam starts to pry, Steve backs away.
Sam: Must have freaked you out, coming home after the whole defrosting thing. Steve: It takes some getting used to. It’s good to see you, Sam.
It’s not just the line that shuts the conversation down, Steve’s entire body language closes off and he turns away from Sam. Sam, being the amazing guy he is, manages to draw Steve back by sharing his own personal experience of war. Steve then opens up because he recognises that Sam approached him as a fellow traumatised human being, and not for “Captain America”, and not for any ulterior motive.
Natasha then whisks Steve away, and we enter the world of subterfuge that is SHIELD. Immediately during the Lemurian Star sequence we establish that Steve dislikes ulterior motives, double-crossing and people withholding information from him.
He and Fury then argue over Project Insight. There are other important themes there about freedom of choice (“this isn’t freedom, this is fear”), innocence until proven guilty (“I thought punishment usually came after the crime”), and American imperialism (“holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection”) which I won’t go into here. They finish their conversation this way:
Fury: SHIELD takes the world as it is, not as we like it to be. And it’s getting damn near past time for you to get with that program, Cap. Steve: Don’t hold your breath.
What happens next is an important story moment, both emotionally for Steve and thematically for the overarching narrative. Steve makes three visits - I’ve said before how these represent his past (the mural of Bucky, the things he’s lost), his present (Peggy, wizened and weary, secluded from society), and his future (Sam, youthful and energetic, moving past his trauma). But there’s also something else key to these moments, and it is trust.
These are the three people Steve thinks he can trust in his life at that moment in time. He knows he can’t trust Nat and Fury (they even told him this). He goes first to find Bucky, because that’s his childhood friend and brother-in-arms, but of course Bucky can’t give him any answers. He then goes to find Peggy, and it is this very brief conversation with Peggy that has all the foreshadowing for the big reveal.
Peggy: You saved the world, we rather mucked it up. Steve:You didn’t. (*CEvans gave emphasis on the “you”). Knowing you helped found SHIELD is half the reason I stay. Peggy: The world has changed and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best, and sometimes the best we can do is to start over.
I’m just going to address the last line first. That line is often given as a mark of Peggy’s words giving Steve’s character direction. But on my most recent rewatch, I noticed this line.
Pierce: Despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down.
Those lines, repeated only two assassination attempts 20 minutes apart, draw a disturbing parallel between Pierce/SHIELD-ra’s intention with Project Insight, and Peggy’s advice to Steve about what should happen next. Was it accidental? Or in the hands of a good writer, foreshadowing?
Going back to the first part of the exchange. Steve’s emphasis on him staying in SHIELD because Peggy had found it…
Is it any accident that upon walking into the abandoned SHIELD facility, he first lays eyes on Peggy’s picture - and is tensely silent when Nat asks him who the girl is - then less than 10 paces from her picture is the entrance to the hidden lift?
This was supposed to be a moment of betrayal. Steve is not stupid. Neither, supposedly, is Peggy.
Immediately upon seeing Bucky, Steve mused that “whatever (Zola) did helped him survive the fall”. He already put two and two together.
The significance of what Zola said about Hydra growing inside SHIELD, and Bucky fighting for SHIELDra would not have been lost on Steve. Even without Bucky explaining the conditions of his imprisonment, it was easy enough to infer that Zola had recaptured Bucky and used him for Hydra’s ends.
Now, going back to the theme of trust. Consistently, throughout this movie, Steve reacts badly when he finds out people have lied or withheld information from him. He’s sarcastic when he finds out the Lemurian Star “isn’t off course, it’s trespassing”. He is furious upon finding out Nat has been given a separate assignment that he didn’t know about. He confronts Fury about it, and doesn’t stop snarking at Fury about his “compartmentalisation” even in the end. And for Sharon Carter, who lied to him about being a nurse? His only acknowledgement of her greeting him is a terse “neighbour”.
Do we really think he hasn’t…at least questioned why a woman he has regularly visited over the last 2 years, who he trusted enough to go to for life advice (he literally gave a monologue to her about feeling lost, which is the most emotionally vulnerable we’ve ever seen Steve be aside from the post-funeral “end of the line” scene) has compartmentalisedthis vital piece of information about Zola? If not also about Hydra and Bucky?
At the end of the movie, Steve learns to trust again: it is in Sam, who had treated him like a fellow veteran, and who was open and truthful in all of their conversations; it is in Bucky, who had been steadfast and loyal in his friendship, and who saves his life upon hearing their childhood promise; and it is in Nat, who gradually sheds all her pretences through the movie and show him what she believes in.
But the organisation that he had once stayed in because Peggy had built it? Steve insisted on tearing it down even when Fury suggested to salvage it. CATWS was a story that built Peggy up to be a villain…then the MCU changed its mind and reneged on a Captain America 3.
Guys…there’s nothing wrong being challenged…there’s nothing wrong with putting a different point of view.
But when you obviously do it in a condescending way, despite (me) taking time answering every point made, with very questionable points…
And then you say my meta is “bad” and block me? I- I don’t understand this logic.
Like I don’t get the hypocrisy.
You blocking me tells me that you are not up to the challenge, that you can’t accept possibly being wrong. That you are immature.
And this is the person who goes parading through toxic positivity fans in the Loki tag. This is a person I have agreed with before. But apparently that don’t mean shit.
Everyday I’m reminding that there are some unhinged and immature people on the internet. Like good golly I can’t amount the times I’ve been proven wrong (sometimes daily), I’ve been roasted…I’ve learned something new.
These people the moment they are told they have a bad take they cover their ears and go “lalalaa I can’t hear you!1!1”. That’s the equivalent of blocking someone after a debate over a meta.
Oof no wonder people tell us antis are unhinged. Welp there’s something pro sylki and pro Loki series fans have over. This person is definitely not worth my time.
But at least those who see my reblog may learn from the meta.
Wait, I just realized something. In “Spider-Man 2″, Sam Raimi referenced Doctor Strange. In “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, Sam Raimi referenced Spider-Man.
I know it’s supposed to be a reference to “No Way Home”, but it also feels like Raimi did a callback to himself.
“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”
— Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight (via books-n-quotes)
Why does Odin treat him like shit?
Because Odin is a textbook narcissist. I think @nikkoliferous has a link to a post for this
@lucianalight did an excellent five-part series on the abusive family dynamic between Odin, Frigga, Thor and Loki. I don’t have the links offhand, but @alstee has also done some great work detailing Odin’s narcissistic parenting.
Odin: we are no different than humans, we live and die just the same
Also Odin, a few scenes later: *sees Jane dying* ewww, get her out of here, why did you bring a human to Asgard??
Thor: dad, she’s sick and we can help her
Odin: humans get sick and die, it’s what they do
Thor: she’s my friend and the woman I love
Odin: did I not remind you Sif existed earlier in the film, come on son
the Aether inside Jane: hey what’s up
Odin: oh damn
Yeah, it’s not just Loki, it’s anyone that threatens Odin’s fragile ego and his distorted beliefs.
He didn’t look like he was even going to banish Thor until Thor insulted him.
He treats Frigga so nicely because she enables him. When she doesn’t…
Okay, I am not a psychologist disclaimer, I just find this topic interesting. (and sad and I also wish it was better known because this dysfunctional family dynamic is less rare than people think because it relies on everyone pretending everything is fine and normal)
Throwing a +1 recommendation to lucianalight’s series of posts, it’s what made me realize what exactly was going on with Loki and his family (I had already heard of NPD, and read a bit about it, but not made the connection to these characters).
Here is Odin hitting all the characteristics of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and a bit on how the disorder warps the way the person experiences reality:
(spoiler: that view does not actually match reality; the person believes they are the center of the universe while everyone else exists as props that cannot possibly function independently of them; they straight up alter memories or events as they happen to suit what they want to believe)
Here is a link to a website that analyses what people like Odin in real life react like when their children finally get fed up and walk away, it is very fascinating and I think it’s a good complementary reading because it’s all about what they say and believe with their own words:
(I’ve seen this linked in forums and twitter and it’s scary how many people go “This sounds exactly like my mother!”):
It’s a whole wild ride and I’m still astounded because I am fairly certain it wasn’t done on purpose in the films and yet they nailed it.
You could use the scenes where Odin, Frigga, Thor and Loki all interact with each other as examples of how the dynamic works to, like, a class of students, or something.
Under Thor’s delusions of grandeur, it’s not about taking revenge on all Asgardians for genuine mistreatment. Thor’s narcissism demands that Loki’s vengeance be about punishing him specifically, hence attacking his new pet realm. Remember when Loki goaded Thor during their fight in Thor (2011) by saying he was going to “pay Jane a visit”?
What really gets me is in that first conversation in The Avengers, Thor seems to have an inkling that Loki’s not acting on his own behalf. “Who controls the would-be king?” he asks. And then he just… drops it and decides everything is about him. I don’t know if he just took Loki’s deflection at face value or what. But you’d think the dude who spent every day for one thousand plus years with Loki would have some concept of how he communicates. For fuck’s sake, Thor. Get over yourself.
We know Loki was mindcontrolled in Avengers. We knew for years.
Lets put aside scene with the obvious fact that Loki is just a puppet and he is being threatened. Scene i dont understand how can anyone watch and not see he isnt doing this on his own will.
What i dont get to this day, is how Thor says “he is after vengeance and me”.
Ok. He is furious at Thor and scepter is even fuelling this hate.
But. Thor,sweetie, not everything is about you.
Plus. Even if there was truth…why attacking Earth & trying to rule it? What vengeance is here? Because “Earth is under my protection?” I dont see that as a good motivation to hurt Thor & get revenge. I think it would be more logical that if Loki wanted revenge,he would try to hurt people who’ve been hurting him his whole life - Asgardians.
He would attack Asgard. They have been bullying him and mock him cos he wasnt typical asgardian man. And it would be even worse if they knew he was frost giant.
What I am saying is,Loki attacking Earth should have been for Thor another sign Loki isnt being himself.
Out of universe: It’s because they needed to establish to the audience that Loki was acting out of character, but still have Thor fight Loki and not have the protagonists find out about Thanos yet.
If Thor had insisted to the others that there was something abnormal going on with Loki and that he wasn’t being himself, the movie couldn’t have ended with everyone going “fiiiiine, take your brother back home to get incarcerated back there, guess we can’t stop you, but if you take the Tesseract we are keeping the Scepter, deal?”
It would have ended with everyone wanting answers and finding out about the Infinity Stones and Thanos and that would have changed the meta-narrative too fast.
Like, the next movies would have been wildly different, not just Avengers, but the solo movies too, if they were all “oh shit there’s a genocidal alien coming this way”, that would have altered all the other plots and made them less important.
In-universe: Thor is Odin’s Golden Child. He’s copying Odin’s narcissism because that’s what he’s been primed to do for centuries. I suppose we could be surprised that he’s turned out to be a halfway decent person at this point of canon. vOv
Also slipping a bit out-of-universe again, but if Thor had been more insistent on how Loki was behaving strangely, to the point that everyone else in the movie was skeptical, but open to finding out more, while keeping Loki detained to keep him from hurting anyone else again, that would have derailed the dang whole movie in like, the beginning of the second act? There might not have been a Chitauri invasion at all.
tl;dr:The whole plot relied on Loki being the villain and no one questioning that enough to unravel his real motivations and finding out the real power behind his actions.
And Thor is a proto-narcissist in this movie thanks to Odin’s A+ Narcissistic Parenting.
I too thought that Frigga was Team Loki until I reassessed things more recently.
TDW is definitely what cements the enabling role from Frigga, Thor 1 still had enough nebulous room for interpretation before that.
Like, when Loki points out that Odin and Thor are not even asking after him while he is locked up in the prison cell!
It seemed like Loki was fishing for a “they are just upset right now, honey, give them time, they still love you” reassurance from Frigga, but instead she avoids addressing that at all and goes all “it’s your fault for being stubborn, admit you are wrong and stop trying to get Odin to admit the same, you know that’s not how it works in this house”.
Loki tries to get Frigga to acknowledge that he was misled his whole life, not just about being Jotun, but about how Odin all but promised him that he had a shot at the throne, and that when Thor was going to be coronated Loki thought it was because Thor had earned it for beating Loki at their competition, not because it was always going to be him from the very beginning.
It’s a shame that we don’t know what Frigga was about to say after “your father” because I really want to know if she was going to say anything about Odin’s hypocrisy or if she was just going to deflect again.
“You know full well it was your actions that brought you here.” “My actions. I was merely giving truth to the lie that I had been fed my entire life, that I was born to be a king.” “A king? A true king admits his faults. What of the lives you took on Earth?” “A mere handful compared to the number that Odin has taken himself.” “Your father…” “He’s not my father!” “Then am I not your mother?” “You’re not.” “Always so perceptive about everyone but yourself.”
I think Frigga was far too used to Loki being the “reasonable” one who always made the first step and said sorry whenever there was an argument because she knew Odin never ever would, so she treated this whole situation as another family disagreement instead of the far more serious “this is the last straw, do y’all realize that if he wasn’t locked up Loki could just run and go no contact with Odin, low contact with Frigga and who knows what with Thor?”
And they definitely did not realize how awful it was in this context, but TDW!Frigga’s words to future!Thor in Endgame about just being who he was really cement that the two brothers were treated differently.
She was telling Thor the words that Loki had been dying to hear.
To me, the shit she says to Loki in TDW is far more unforgivable than her going along with Odin’s deception. (Along with the fact that when Loki does find out about his heritage, her method of comforting him isn’t, “there’s nothing wrong with being Jötun;” it’s essentially “it’s okay because we raised you.” Nor is there ever an acknowledgement that he absolutely was treated differently, if not by her then at least by Odin). An argument can be made that she was too afraid to defy Odin openly—we’ve seen how he handles disobedience, after all. But there’s no excuse for her chronic gaslighting and emotional blackmail.
A lot of the fandom, I think, has trouble recognising that Frigga failed Loki too, because Loki himself fails to realise it. Or if he does realise it, he fails to acknowledge it because then he truly would have been alone. So he settles for the meagre scraps of attention she gives him, even though he deserves far better. It doesn’t help that even Tom doesn’t seem to realise how complicit Frigga was in Loki’s trauma.
@dianamolloy i dont hate frigga but i was always bitter for her sayin to Loki she told Odin to tell Loki truth from the beginning. What was stopping her from doing so?
Also,in TDW,in deleted scene with Loki’s coronation. She says he casts enough illusions and forgets whats real,after seeing his illusion of holding Mjolnir. I hate that she, instaed,didnt say “you dont need Mjolnir, Loki,you are worthy and equal to Thor anyway” but no. Not a word.
I used to hate Odin and think Frigga was great. I have completely 180• my opinion of her too. They both extremely can go to hell for keeping him in the dark, plus all the One Rule for You, One Rule for Thor shenanigans. She shows in T:TDW that she will disobey Odin “I am the king my word is law” Dickhead and yet says nothing. Now sadly that is to do with bad writing on Marvel’s part bc the Frigga we see would have told Loki bc you can’t have “Jötunn are bad” narrative exist in Asgard and think Loki would just think it’s great and fine to suddenly be effectively banished to “rule” - aka do Odin’s bidding - Jötenhein having no experience with being there . However, using canon as law (in this instance I’d rarely ever) she is equally guilty and complicit for both the preferential treatment Thor got (if Odin refused to change she picked staying Queen over leaving him bc the narrative never implies she’s forced to do anything) and not telling Loki.
Do you ever just *clenches fists* think about the fact that Thor and Loki would have actually been such great characters with contrasting character arcs
Thor’s problem is that he is arrogant. This is established in the first Thor movie. Other than that, he is also heavily dependent on Odin for proving his self worth, which is also evident in the first Thor movie (he had a breakdown when he couldn’t lift the hammer). His entire character arc should be about learning to be more humble, actions have consequences, don’t be reckless etc.
Loki, on the other hand, needs to learn to assert himself. It doesn’t seem like it, but the thing is, he’s very adamant on proving himself to be Thor’s equal, yet he is never recognised as such. In The Dark World deleted scene, he conjured up illusions of his greatest fantasies - one where he has Thor’s friends and Thor’s hammer. Think about this - to Loki, being himself is not even enough. His character arc should have been about realising that he is, in fact, enough. He doesn’t and shouldn’t have to measure his own worth by others’ standards. At least, the “assert yourself” should be a part of his character arc.
They are brothers, and their character arcs could have poetically mirrored each other - yet these aspects of their characters are either not developed at all, or suggested and then abandoned at the hands of different directors.
YES. I’ve long had an idea about them also switching positions as troublemaker/responsible brother now that Thor has matured and Loki doesn’t need to restrain Thor and himself.
Fucking hell, this so much. It’s so frustrating how Marvel completely dropped the ball on character continuity for the Thor franchise. I think part of the problem is they didn’t really know what to do with Thor and were too chicken shit to fully commit to the fantasy elements, i.e. “magic is just advanced technology and they’re not really gods”, so they ended up with all this handwavy magic science that they never bothered to explain (and totally nerfed Loki lolsob).
Anyway I feel like the characterization probably suffered because of that, and all of the rewrites and reshoots and stuff. If you have someone write a script and then start making the movie and then have someone else come in and rewrite it then yeah, it’s gonna be a hot damn mess. If you don’t let the damn director edit his own damn movie, it’s gonna be a hot damn mess. It’s probably mostly because of Hiddleston’s genuine love and commitment to his character that Loki’s narrative is as coherent as it is.
I’m pretty sure that some people have pointed it out before, but I’ve never actually seen those posts:
“After. After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend. As a balm. And I would cooperate.”
First I’d like to note that Loki doesn’t seem to assume that Thor would go “you can’t torture Loki he’s my brother”. He legit thinks that Thor would let SHIELD torture him.
But more than that… he seems to be projecting. He was referring to the time he spent in captivity, when he was tortured. Cooperate in the sense that “yes I will retrieve the tesseract”.
Re: Loki thinking that Thor would let SHIELD torture him: this reminds me of a post that’s gone around about someone asking Tom about why Loki tries to kill Thor in Thor 1 (apologies l, I can’t remember who originally posted it), and him responding that it was his opinion that Loki thought that Thor would kill him once Thor found out that Loki was a Frost Giant. That fear is made a little more explicit here, and it’s just so, so sad. Especially given that we see Fury talk to Thor about torturing Loki, and Thor reacts with disbelief that they’d even consider it. (there’s an essay here probably about Loki’s expectations about Thor being violent towards him and the fact that Thor rarely meets those expectations but…eh I’ll just explore in fanfiction, I can’t write essays)
Anyway, the way the Nat scene is filmed totallymakes it seem like Loki is projecting. Note his reflection in the glass:
And then we get:
“You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are part of you. And they will never go away.”
It seems clear to me from the cinematography directly preceding these lines that we are absolutely meant to see Loki talking about himselfhere, whether or not he’s aware of it. So much of this scene is about Loki, what he thinks of himself, what’s been done to him, what he’s gone through. Maybe all of it, when you take into account that Nat’s putting on an act the whole time.
t I have this headcanon that part of the reason that Loki agreed to Thanos to invade New York (not that Loki had that much of a choice since he was being tortured) was because he knew that if any of the other Black Order members - or, heck, even Gamora/Nebula, the casualty rate would have been wayhigher. That’s where the “You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something to make up for the horrors” comes from. There’s a lot of talk about Loki deliberately taking measures to notwin the battle of New York. The way he’s projecting here - maybe he’s trying to convince himself that this is inevitable. He has to carry out the invasion. This way he can lessen the casualties. But at the same time, he’s regretting it. He knows the blood is on his hands (he proceeds to taunt Natasha about the blood in her ledger - also projecting).
“But they are part of you. And they will never go away.” Regarding this statement, I’ve been thinking about the article where Marvel confirms that Loki was being influenced by the scepter. Under normal circumstances, he never would have invaded Earth. (There are fics where Loki falls into the Void only to emerge on Earth instead of Thanos’ hands - and it’s not like Loki’s first thought upon arriving to Earth was to conquer it.) But because of the scepter’s influence, it magnifies Loki’s emotions like rage and vengeance. We never actually know how long Loki was exposed to the scepter. How long did Thanos have it? Was Loki exposed to its influence for a long time even before he initiated the invasion?
Maybe, on some level, Loki knows that the scepter was influencing him somehow. Bringing out his worst emotions. All these people he killed during the invasion - that was on his hands. He was responsible. Everyone else is also holding him responsible too. Didn’t matter that he did this under duress. @magicmastered did a piece on why Loki didn’t tell others he was tortured (typical me forgot the link so…) and one of the reasons cited was that in a warrior culture like Asgard, Loki was the one who would be seen as weak because he wasn’t strong enough to resist the torture. He gave in - his fault. It doesn’t matter that there were external circumstances - being tortured, mind stone’s influence etc. Loki believes that the person who invaded NYC is Loki - it’s who he is, he is a despicable criminal.
“You put a bullet in someone. You’re not you anymore. You’ll never be you again. But then you wake up the next morning and you’re still you. And you realise that was you all along. You just didn’t know.” - HBO Chernobyl
Re: Loki’s assumption that Thor would let SHIELD torture him/Thor and Fury’s conversation, this is how I remember that going (well, paraphrased):
Fury: You think you can make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?
Thor: He craves vengeance, upon me. There is no pain that would prise this need from him.
Fury: A lot of guys think that, till the pain [stops/starts/i forgot].
Thor: What are you asking me to do?
Fury: I’m asking you what you’re prepared to do.
(Side note: Holy crap, Fury.)
Thor’s reaction seems less “what in the crap?!?!?” and more “it’s not going to work, there’s no point”. I don’t believe Thor would’ve tortured Loki. He’s just not in total disbelief at Fury’s suggestion.
Loki’s expectations of Thor’s violence do make a sort of sense, when you consider that at this point he genuinely believes that Thor threw him off the Bifrost, and Thor didn’t really help matters when his first move upon seeing Loki was to grab him by the neck and drag him out of a plane. And then, right before Tony knocked him out-of-frame, Thor threatened Loki with Mjolnir.
It’s also, I think, an effect of Loki’s depression. He thinks Thor doesn’t care about him, and would take Thor’s rough introduction, the fact that the first thing Thor talked about was the Tesseract, and Thor’s threat as further proof.
And yes, I love that part of the Loki and Nat scene for that reason exactly. He’s projecting so much there. That section you quoted is a direct parallel to his time with Thanos (while also being true of Nat).
YES. Loki blames himself for NY. In his mind, if he was just strong enough, he could’ve held off and not broken. If anything it makes it worse than if he’d just woken up one day and decided to invade Earth and kill a bunch of people. He’d be a murderer but not weak. This way, as he sees it, he’s both.
I’m still making up my mind on what was going on with the invasion. I agree that if any of Thanos’ other people led that invasion there would’ve been a far higher death toll…but I’m also not convinced that they would’ve done the conquering Earth thing in the first place. Thanos’ big thing was getting the Tesseract. Controlling Earth (directly or indirectly) probably wouldn’t have been much of a concern for him.
And I’m just not sure Loki’d care enough at that point, what with the scepter’s influence. Note that up until Thor forced him to really see the destruction, Loki looked like this:
Not exactly “I wish I didn’t have to do this.”
Not consciously, anyway. I can buy that on some level he didn’t want there to be as much of a slaughter as there would’ve been, but I doubt it was part of his conscious decision-making process.
If Loki was sabotaging the invasion consciously, I can see how keeping down the death toll could’ve been a factor…just maybe not one he was himself aware of.
But “you pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors” is definitely coming from somewhere….
…Maybe Thanos was initially planning on doing his usual genocide routine on Earth, because why not and he’s there anyway, but eventually went with having Loki rule it instead. That genocide would have had a death toll in the billions, as opposed to Loki’s and the Chitauri’s total of 155 that we know of (assuming that Nat wasn’t exaggerating and that we put all deaths from the PEGASUS base’s collapse are on Loki).
In that case you might be right…..
It turns out I had more to add.
Loki’s self-blame may be even worse because of his particular role with regards to retrieving the Tesseract.
If Thanos knew about the Tesseract’s location before he acquired Loki, why didn’t he come to Earth earlier? Was there something stopping him? If that’s the case, Loki would’ve been a way around that (since he was able to go to Earth pretty easily). Ergo, if it wasn’t for Loki, Thanos wouldn’t have been able to come for the Tesseract for whatever reason.
If Thanos didn’t know where the Tesseract was before he got Loki…then Loki is most likely how they found out, considering how much the Other thinks of Loki’s knowledge of it. Therefore, if it wasn’t for Loki, Thanos wouldn’t have known to send anyone to Earth.
Either way, that’s even more things that Loki could blame himself for.
So many thoughts, only think I can brain properly right now is:
It is entirely possible that Loki was the one who knew where the Tesseract was, and that Thanos found out from Loki through whatever method – reading his mind? tortured it out of him? Loki offering up that info to his captors as his “cooperation” (to stop the torture)?
Odin was the one who hid the Tesseract on Earth, right? It’s possible that he shared this information with his sons, or if he didn’t, perhaps Loki found out on his own because he is totally the type to sneak around to find out secrets Odin kept.
Doctor Strange’s Development in Multiverse of Madness (Spoilers)
A lot of his development goes back to his obsessive need to control things. It was a problem for him when he was training under the Ancient One as well. There was the whole scene where she told him he needed to learn to surrender control. Of course, by the end of the first movie he had really gone far into the more controlling elements of his nature, going so far as to physically control time when fighting Dormmamu.
This was something he was still struggling with regarding his relationships. It’s why people keep asking if he’s happy. He seemingly had it altogether on the outside, abandoning his human side in order to express control through his sorcerer side. He has to be the one to make the big decisions and the big power plays, his actions in Infinity War prove this.
Multiverse of Madness strips away a lot of that and it gets more to the core of his character. He realizes that by trying to control everything he’s not happy. He’s seemingly abandoned his more human side to focus on the big extra dimensional threats. And he still does this at the beginning of the movie, going to Wanda, trying to get the book of Vishanti, etc etc.
We see it is a big issue for all the other Strange’s as well. Strange Supreme struggled with it, and so did Sinister Strange. In one instance it led to his death, in the other it led to the death of everything else. Strange literally confronts his foils.
He believes he can do what the others did, but do it better. Hence his whole decision to dream walk. But he eventually realizes even with all of his powers he can’t defeat Wanda in his current state. He humbles himself and helps America awaken to her own potential which leads to the “defeat” of Wanda. He gave up control and allowed himself to not be the one holding the scalpel.
After everything goes back to normal we see him repair his watch from Christine. The broken watch was a symbol of his own broken life and the division between the two halves which ultimately prevents him from being happy. He fixes it, finally moving on from Christine and opens himself to the possibilities. And when we see him leave the Sanctum at the end, he’s not leaving as a sorcerer but as Stephen Strange the man. He’s now willing to move on and give up some of his excessive need for control. Just in time for him to meet Clea and have a new chance at finding his own happiness.
Or that’s how I read it anyway.
TL;DR: Strange finally learned to surrender control and shared his burdens so he doesn’t have to sacrifice his own happiness.
Just to throw in my two cents’ worth: Christine Palmer tells Stephen that they could never work out because he always had to hold the knife.
During this scene, Clea is definitely the one holding the knife, as she slices open a hole into the Dark Dimension. I love that bit of symbolism.
I agree with this analysis of Strange in MCU. That’s exactly how I saw it too. He wanted to control everything, maybe because of the trauma of his sister’s death? That’s why he became a surgeon, to control life and death in a way. And once he lost it, he found it it another place: magic.
I remember seeing him No Way Home and wondering what was off with him, and now I know what it was, he couldn’t find his own place. After Infinity War and Endgame he lost his other place of control: being Sorcerer Supreme. Now Wong is one, and Straange didn’t know how to deal with it. He tried to do his own thing in NWH, and he couldn’t really bring himself to show respect to Wong because it would he admitting he is not in control anymore. But he does! In the end, after he relinquished his need to control *and fix* everything he is at peace not only with himself but also with his role as not the Sorcerer Supreme anymore.
And the broken watch was such a telling sign! I squealed with delight when he repaired it, after the whole movie it was such a poignant and powerful thing! He not only moved on, but also become whole. And like you said, happy with himself, at peace with himself.
Okay but can we talk about the parallel between Christine telling Strange to face his fears, the Clea showing up asking Strange if he’s afraid?
When redhead Christine from another universe was saying goodbye to Stephen and him confessing that he was scared to have someone love him/care for him, Christine specifically told Stephen to face his fears.
At the end when Clea comes to gather Stephen to fix an incursion she asks Stephen to come along with her, unless he’s afraid! Then Stephen proceeds to say that he isn’t afraid in the least!
I think Stephen repairing the broken watch face then putting it away in a box was in part symbolism showing he had gotten his closure with Christine in this movie.
I absolutely adore Christine and Stephen but I think the MCU having a couple that loved each other but weren’t able to overcome their obstacles is so real and grounding. It’s the case for plenty of relationships and is a very real thing that happens all the time.
It’s also refreshing when a character has more than one relationship in their story as they evolve and grow as a person.
I’m hoping for a slow burn romance with Clea and Stephen in the MCU, although I don’t know how the writers are ever going to top I love you in every universe.
Super excited to see what the MCU and Charlize Theron do with Clea - it’s amazing that we finally have her in live action. ✨
Photo is Doctor Strange and Clea by Paul Smith.
“I think the MCU having a couple that loved each other but weren’t able to overcome their obstacles is so real and grounding. It’s the case for plenty of relationships and is a very real thing that happens all the time.
It’s also refreshing when a character has more than one relationship in their story as they evolve and grow as a person”
^ Same. It’s not something you see much in superhero movies–they typically just start with the iconic canon pairing (Batman movies are a big exception, they love adapting as many of his comic love interests as possible). And as for the DS movies, they so easily could’ve had Christinejust be the normal person audience surrogate and a symbol of Stephen’s normal person past, and then not have her in the sequel. They were already exes in the first movie, for one thing. But they made her an emotional, intrinsic part of his character exploration and development in MoM–essentially the core of it. Down to even the watch getting its own little sub-arc across both movies.
Doctor Strange’s Development in Multiverse of Madness (Spoilers)
A lot of his development goes back to his obsessive need to control things. It was a problem for him when he was training under the Ancient One as well. There was the whole scene where she told him he needed to learn to surrender control. Of course, by the end of the first movie he had really gone far into the more controlling elements of his nature, going so far as to physically control time when fighting Dormmamu.
This was something he was still struggling with regarding his relationships. It’s why people keep asking if he’s happy. He seemingly had it altogether on the outside, abandoning his human side in order to express control through his sorcerer side. He has to be the one to make the big decisions and the big power plays, his actions in Infinity War prove this.
Multiverse of Madness strips away a lot of that and it gets more to the core of his character. He realizes that by trying to control everything he’s not happy. He’s seemingly abandoned his more human side to focus on the big extra dimensional threats. And he still does this at the beginning of the movie, going to Wanda, trying to get the book of Vishanti, etc etc.
We see it is a big issue for all the other Strange’s as well. Strange Supreme struggled with it, and so did Sinister Strange. In one instance it led to his death, in the other it led to the death of everything else. Strange literally confronts his foils.
He believes he can do what the others did, but do it better. Hence his whole decision to dream walk. But he eventually realizes even with all of his powers he can’t defeat Wanda in his current state. He humbles himself and helps America awaken to her own potential which leads to the “defeat” of Wanda. He gave up control and allowed himself to not be the one holding the scalpel.
After everything goes back to normal we see him repair his watch from Christine. The broken watch was a symbol of his own broken life and the division between the two halves which ultimately prevents him from being happy. He fixes it, finally moving on from Christine and opens himself to the possibilities. And when we see him leave the Sanctum at the end, he’s not leaving as a sorcerer but as Stephen Strange the man. He’s now willing to move on and give up some of his excessive need for control. Just in time for him to meet Clea and have a new chance at finding his own happiness.
Or that’s how I read it anyway.
TL;DR: Strange finally learned to surrender control and shared his burdens so he doesn’t have to sacrifice his own happiness.
Just to throw in my two cents’ worth: Christine Palmer tells Stephen that they could never work out because he always had to hold the knife.
During this scene, Clea is definitely the one holding the knife, as she slices open a hole into the Dark Dimension. I love that bit of symbolism.
Hot take: I’m perfectly fine with Kamala Khan’s stretchy powers being switched for energy construct powers. One, she still uses the energy construct powers to enlarge her limbs, so it’s not like they completely erased that aspect of Kamala’s character. Two, body modification powers look really weird in live-action. I’ve seen all the Fantastic Four movies and all of them failed to make Reed’s stretching look cool to watch. So if this is the compromise to make Kamala’s stretching powers look good in live-action, then fine.
