“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.
