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Cautionary Tale: Loki (2021)

Glorious purpose indeed.

Well, it’s happened again. A work of fiction had a strong start and then devolved into lousy material.

First off, obviously, spoilers for the Loki 2021 series as well as the general MCU films and shows up to now. You’ve been warned.

To give you some background, I actually wasn’t a Loki fan until far later in the game. I paid him no mind in the first Thor, enjoyed him in Avengers, and then slowly over the time between Thor: The Dark World and Ragnarok, Loki slithered his way into my heart. It’s not as if I think he’s the best character in the MCU or anything, but I adore him. He’s a shitlord. He’s so extra. He’s the embodiment of chaos. He managed to charm me and make me care about him, even becoming a sort of anchor character for me in my fanfiction writing sessions. Naturally, I was quite excited when they announced he’d been given a spinoff series after the events of Avengers: Endgame. I wanted to see Tom Hiddleston continue to shine in the role, even if it was just going to be for a brief extra story for us to enjoy.

And that’s how it started off.

Episodes 1 & 2 of Loki (2021) contain the content that I’d hoped for. We got to see Loki at the end of his rope, but in a different sense than his fate in Infinity War. He was thrown into an organization he knew nothing about and without his powers. He had to figure out how to survive without any hope of outside help, which we know he’s done before. It gave us some nice introspective moments, showed us he was human, showed us vulnerable bits to his character. We also got to see plenty of his faults and shortcomings, all of which was fun and interesting.

And then Sylvie showed up.

And as soon as she did, my enjoyment of the show pretty much evaporated.

ICYMI, Sylvie is a Loki variant who was caught by the Time Variance Authority at a young age, but she managed to (easily, so easily it was insulting) escape and hide in apocalypses her entire life plotting how to destroy the TVA for kidnapping her and removing her from her own timeline. Now, granted, on paper, that backstory is okay-ish, but Sylvie is my newest entry on the exhaustingly long list of fictional characters who suffer from what I call White Bitch Syndrome.

Now, I still plan to write a full essay on White Bitch Syndrome, but let me do a short definition here. White Bitch Syndrome is when a female character—and most of the time, she is white and blonde—in a work of fiction is given undeserved credit and disrupts the dynamic of whatever work of fiction she is in, causing negative consequences for those around her but never having to suffer those same consequences herself. To me, she is almost a subversion of a Mary Sue. She takes valuable screentime away from other far more interesting and well-written characters and does all of it with a sense of entitlement that makes me want to pull my hair out.

And that’s exactly what Sylvie is.

I cannot fathom what made the writing team for Loki decide that they should give 60% of Loki’s screentime to this snotty, entitled, obnoxious Loki variant. As soon as episode three hits, she completely co-ops Loki’s show to make it all about her.

And here’s the kicker: she’s not even interesting.

It’s a bait-and-switch. I came here for Loki (or Tom Hiddleston, depends on who you ask) and what did you do? You found the world’s most irritating white woman and gave her his show. This isn’t why I came here. At all. So not only did you give me something I don’t want, you didn’t bother to make her likable or even just interesting in general. The rules of writing, at least in my mind, are to make main protagonists in a work either likable or interesting. Sylvie is neither. She is such a borderline Mary Sue. She’s stronger, smarter, more powerful than everyone around her, she constantly shoots her mouth off to disparage Loki and the other characters, she thinks she’s better than everyone and the writing of the show seems to agree, and she makes EVERYTHING about her every second she’s on screen. It’s insufferable.

But that’s not the worst part.

What truly broke me was episode 4. I had to put up with this snotty character, fine, okay, as long as maybe I get some good Loki content with what little screentime he has left after she’s sucked it all up. No. It had to get worse. The show then states—after only one and a half episodes of interactions—that Loki has a crush on Sylvie/is attached to her.

Seriously?

He’s known her for like five minutes.

What the hell do you mean he likes her?

This element of Loki (2021) is what switched me from disliking it to outright hating it. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate it when fiction generates attachment between two characters without doing the leg work first. There are few things I hate as much as when characters barely interact and then the fiction states that now they’re in love or best friends or care about each other when there is little evidence in the work itself. Loki and Sylvie spent the entire third episode hating one another. The dynamic comes across like a brother and sister who can’t stand each other being stuck in the same place, having to make nice. Then the show just decides Loki is into her, despite no evidence, despite limited screen time, despite Sylvie showing no regard or concern for him at all. It comes across as the show telling us “this is a thing because I said so.”

And that’s not good enough.

Look, I know I’m biased. I’m attached to Loki and I don’t like blonde white women in fiction because of repeated instances of White Bitch Syndrome. But this isn’t jealousy. This is lousy writing. It is lousy of them to stuff this character into the narrative to take the focus away from Loki and it’s lousy of them to have Loki inexplicably have some sort of attachment to her when the evidence points to the opposite. He should simply be using her to get what he wants, but instead they have him following after her like a helpless puppy because her Super Special Awesome Powers are so much better than his and he can’t do anything on his own. They took a show with a unique premise and made a hard left, instead making it a platform for “ooh, look at this cool white girl” instead of keeping the focus on Loki trying to survive the TVA and destroy it. Loki honestly had more chemistry and attachment to Valkyrie–who soundly beat his ass and later begrudgingly tolerated him because they needed to stop Hela–than with Sylvie. I would believe he was into Valkyrie before I’d ever believe he was into Sylvie.

For me in particular, this is unacceptable because it just feels like Sylvie is nothing more than a vehicle for the white fangirls to imagine themselves into Loki’s story. It’s no secret that Loki’s fandom is majority female and I imagine it’s largely white women. Sylvie is a transparent Audience Surrogate Mary Sue-adjacent character designed to make said fangirls feel like they have a personal connection to Loki. They can easily see themselves as Sylvie and it seems to be the only real reason she was written into the story. If she had been properly written, she would have just remained a tangential antagonist either getting in Loki’s way or preventing him from reaching whatever goal he has for himself. There was no reason to write a forced wannabe romance into the story. It’s so unearned and unnecessary.

Alright, so I’ve made my case for why Sylvie sucks. Let’s pretend for a moment that I didn’t hate her with the fire of a thousand suns. That’s not the show’s only problem. Another reason why Loki (2021) began to tank for me is that Loki has almost no agency after the end of the second episode. The second he starts following Sylvie around, the show seems to forget this is a thousand-year-old demigod with magical powers and a wealth of schemes and plans. Everything from episode 3 onward has Loki little more than a doofus who likes to run his mouth. We don’t get to see any of that calculating intelligence that made us love Loki in his previous films and appearances. He’s not doing anything. He’s just stumbling from one place to the next utterly failing and not affecting change nor the plot itself. I fear part of the problem is that the writing staff took too much from Thor: Ragnarok without understanding that the film, while a comedy, also knew how to write a balanced Loki. We know Loki is capable of making mistakes, but the ones he commits in this show are egregious. It’s not organic to the character. It feels as if they are trying to emulate Ragnarok without allowing Loki the same agency and behaviors that made him so lovable in the first place. Think about it. Loki tricked Thor into thinking he was dead and impersonated Odin convincingly (or so we’re assuming, since we don’t catch up to him until 2017, which is 4 years after Thor: The Dark World) for entire years without anyone catching him. He then lands on Sakaar after Hela attacks and manages to worm his way into the Grandmaster’s good graces in only a matter of weeks. Loki has been an effective antagonist and part time protagonist for several films, which is why he’s been so popular. I don’t understand why they have written him completely bumbling and ineffective in this series after the halfway point in the story. In Fish Out of Water stories, you still need to have the protagonist affecting change and making important decisions that affect the plot and develop them as characters. He’s not learning anything, he’s not changing, he’s not growing. He’s stuck in the passenger’s seat while Sylvie drives the car off the cliff.

Speaking of unearned nonsense, this whole “friendship” between Mobius and Loki also annoys me. It’s like I’m not watching the same show. When did they become “friends”? Do they not know what that means? Presumably, Mobius and Loki spent several hours together investigating the Loki variant and while I actually quite like their banter, they too were not with each other long enough to consider each other friends. I don’t like it when fiction drops the F-word (friend, of course) unwarranted and this is another example. Mobius and Loki were at most colleagues. They were only together for two and a half episodes and then for a short bit in episode 4. The show yet again did not do the leg work but then handed us this forced claim of friendship when they’ve really just been enemies temporarily on the same side. I do think aspects of the relationship work, just not enough for the show to claim that now they are magically friends. It’s less of an eyesore than the claim that Loki likes Sylvie, but it’s still poorly written and has little evidence to back it up.

Another aspect of the show that bothers the hell out of me is they introduce Hunter B-15 and Judge Renslayer as powerful, competent women…and then sideline them. Hunter B-15 becomes Sylvie’s lackey after Sylvie’s enchantment caused her to remember her life before the TVA erased her memory. Hunter B-15 was introduced to us in a spectacular fashion, bitchslapping Loki and being an incredible force to be reckoned with. I remember being so excited to see a dark-skinned black woman on the Loki posters, hoping for more representation, and yet they’ve done what too many shows and movies have done with black women—forced them to be in the shadow of their white counterparts. Judge Renslayer is even more of a letdown that B-15. She is introduced as smart and coldly calculating, but then Mary Sue Sylvie EASILY beats her in combat and she’s turned into a mugging, desperate mess instead of someone who was ruling an entire organization with an iron fist for God-knows how long. It was fine for Renslayer to be off-balance finding out the Timekeepers weren’t real. What wasn’t fine was a white blonde woman domineering over a black woman who previously held authority. Renslayer presided over the TVA…and that’s the best she can do? Stall, lie, and babble in front of Sylvie? It’s so painfully obvious that the show wants to keep kissing Sylvie’s ass and insisting she’s the most powerful Loki of all and they sacrificed any potential greatness for Renslayer as a result. I don’t mind Renslayer turning out to be bad; she wasn’t giving off any other impression in the first place. What I do mind is having this white woman just sling her around like it’s nothing when Renslayer should be far more effective than that considering she’s been the boss for presumably years and years. Why the hell was she leading the TVA if she can’t even handle this one variant?

This issue in particular burns me up because while Marvel has been doing a really good job introducing people of color into the lineup and giving them agency, there has also been this trend of what I like to call checkmark diversity. This is when shows or movies include POC in a work as supporting characters in order to check off the diversity box, but they’re not actually giving these POC much to do. They are constantly overshadowed by the white characters instead. The show gets to claim they’re progressive and diverse, but when you look at the POC’s storylines and interactions, you actually don’t end up with anything other than window dressing. I can tell you several different ideas I had for what would become of Hunter B-15 and Renslayer, but none of those came to fruition. The focus remained on the three central white characters: Loki, Sylvie, and Mobius. We know for a fact that the MCU can write excellent black characters like Sam Wilson, Monica Rambeau, and Luke Cage. It’s a damn shame to have two enjoyable black women on this show and they’re just there to fill in a checkbox. It’s especially sad since I’ve seen some behind the scenes bits with the actresses and Tom Hiddleston and they get along wonderfully. It’s truly adorable seeing some of their interactions, so for the show to have them both end up doormats to the white leads is an utter disappointment for me personally as a black fangirl.

At the time of this post, there is still the Loki finale to be watched. Honestly, though, I have no hopes for it any longer. I had hoped that with the plot of episode 5 being Loki in what is basically Purgatory with other versions of himself that we’d get the focus back on him and his desires, but no. Sylvie finds him in like 10 minutes of screentime and goes right to making everything about her, fulfilling her White Bitch Syndrome duties and securing herself as a Mary Sue-adjacent character. I’m tired. I will watch the finale, but I’m expecting it to be just as disappointing as it’s been since the halfway point in the series.

It hurts me to say these things. I’ve written a metric ton of Loki/MCU fanfiction. I truly enjoy his character. I cried like a baby when he died in Infinity War. I really like him, but this show stupidly managed to take from him rather than give him more things, ironically enough. It’s not yet to a point where I declare it Discontinuity, but I am unfortunately not going to be really be taking anything away from this series. I’m probably going to ignore it and go back to my Denial Land of fanfiction instead.

My final point is that Loki (2021) is a cautionary tale because of its utterly squandered potential. The show’s trailers promised lots of things that looked amazing, but then once you pull off the cloak, all you get is a snotty OC and a very diminished, borderline derivative version of Loki. I am far more satisfied with the canon timeline Loki than with this Loki variant, which is a shame. I’m not to a point that I wouldn’t recommend the show, but of the MCU shows, Loki is certainly the weakest. It doesn’t live up to what it promised because of the writers’ inexplicable decision to give away his screentime to an entitled bratty character with, and this is just personal taste, a substandard actress with a grating performance. The lesson to be learned from this is that you have to know what you’re going after when you set off on a side story. The overall consequences of Loki have yet to be seen, but the implication is that the timeline is going to be destabilized and will then set off the Multiverse of Madness that will be addressed in Spider-Man 3: No Way Home and in Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness. That being said, I don’t think this show is strong enough to warrant anyone other than die-hard Loki fans a watch. I am open to the thought that maybe the finale will redeem the show, but it’s doubtful based on the evidence I currently have. More than likely, it’s going to go out on a whimper and not a bang and the romantic red string the writers forced around Loki’s neck is going to strangle him same as Thanos did.

I hope I’m wrong.

But I’m probably not.

Here’s to the multiverse. At least it has a version of Loki that’s not a disappointment.

Is Loki Evil?

Is Loki evil?

Doesn’t that sound like such a simple question?

I mean, I could have answered that question quite easily back when we only had two movies to base the evidence on: Thor and the Avengers. Now that we’re at a total of five performances by the lovely Tom Hiddleston, I find myself struggling with evidence for and against this simple little question. It’s sort of made me consider that maybe the idea of good and evil isn’t as clean-cut as I once thought. I’m no stranger to grey area, but Loki has made me examine my own definition of evil now that we’ve gotten a complete scope of who he is as a character over the course of the Thor and MCU franchise. I thought it would be fun to muse over the question and see if I can draw an actual conclusion, or if I’ll remain undecided on the issue.

Naturally, major spoilers for every single film Loki has been in.

Evidence supporting evil:

  • Arranging Thor’s banishment: Loki of course made the excuse that he was simply trying to stall Thor being crowned King of Asgard as “a bit of fun” and because he believes Thor is a buffoon. He egged his brother on to go after the Frost Giants, knowing Odin would blame Thor and cast him out, leaving the throne to eventually fall to him. Gee, what a nice thing to do to someone who was raised alongside you and shows clear signs of having loved you since the moment you met each other, Loki. You ass-hat.
  • Plotting Odin’s assassination: Now we get into some tricky territory. Loki planned to secure himself as the hero and savior of Asgard by letting the Frost Giants into Asgard to slay his father and then killing Laufey in a double cross. It then gave him an excuse to wipe out the Frost Giants, thereby erasing his past and whatever feelings of guilt and inadequacy that their existence created in him. He also murdered his own damn father with zero remorse, and while I can agree that I can see why since Laufey appears to be nothing more than a monster who left him to die, it’s still incredibly messed up.
  • Killing Thor: Yep. There’s no if, ands, or buts about it—Loki tried to kill his brother, innocent people, and Thor’s comrades to keep himself on the throne. He didn’t even seem remorseful about it either.
  • Attempting genocide on the Frost Giants: This also speaks for itself. The reasoning here doesn’t hold water, either. Loki found out he wasn’t Odin’s son by blood and it twisted up inside him until it completely warped his view on his upbringing. Therefore, to him, eliminating the Frost Giants out of revenge for being abandoned and finding out he’s just a monster who looks like a prince made sense. Out of sight, out of mind. Still, even though the Frost Giants didn’t appear to be anything similar to good, decent beings, there is no excuse for genocide. Loki had no right to kill them all based on the actions of Laufey and Odin.
  • Trying to kill Thor a second time on the Rainbow Bridge: This is a particular sting to me because Thor so clearly didn’t want to hurt Loki, and certainly didn’t want to kill him. One thing that tears me up about Loki’s selfish, cruel nature is what it does to Thor. Nothing pisses me off more than the fangirls trying to say that any of this shit is Thor’s fault. We never see Thor treat Loki wrong. At most, sure, he talked over him and has probably embarrassed him in the past, but there is no abuse shown in their background. Thor loves his brother to death. Truly, selflessly. It’s so tragic that Thor loves him unconditionally considering what happens next in their joined narrative. At the end of the day, Thor just wants his brother back. He doesn’t care about Loki being a Frost Giant. He wanted to fight by his side and laugh and do all the dumb things brothers do. So Loki trying to kill him twice in the same film where we see how much Thor’s family means to him is just a big fat gut-stabbing to the feels.
  • Pretty much everything Loki does in The Avengers: the strongest argument for Loki being evil is largely here, in my opinion. I mean, we have blatant murder, mind control, plotting to have the mind-controlled Clint murder Natasha, at least two direct attempts to kill Thor, trying to kill all the Avengers as well as everyone aboard the helicarrier, killing Agent Coulson in cold blood, and then blowing up a good chunk of New York in the process of trying to rule the planet earth. Odin’s beard, this is Loki’s most evil actions that we’ve seen from him period. What’s so fascinating to me is that we still see just a peek that Loki pretends that he’s just an apathetic cold bastard, but then there are moments where we know that’s not the whole truth. The way he quietly asks Thor, “Did you mourn?” with this conflicted look that kind of sums up why I wanted to write this argument in the first place. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t care. Loki cares what Thor thinks of him, to some degree. It’s even in the scene atop Stark Tower where Thor tries again to bring his brother around. It’s very quick, but an actual tear slides down his face right before he stabs Thor and mutters, “Sentiment.” Loki keeps choosing the wrong side, choosing to be a selfish, thoughtless monster, and yet it’s still clear he feels fear, regret, remorse, and other emotions same as Thor does, but he refuses to let his emotions control his actions. He’s set course for the iceberg and he’s just going to crash into that thing no matter what. Good intentions mean nothing. The actions make the man, and the man is a monster in The Avengers.
  • Guiding Malekith’s lieutenant to Odin’s bedchambers: Ooh, if there’s one thing that burns me up with Loki, it’s his constant blame and revenge against Odin. Don’t get me wrong—Odin’s no prize. He’s a garbage father by the time we piece together what he’s done since his sons (and as we discover in Ragnarok, his daughter too) were born and/or found, but in this case, Loki’s in the wrong in so many ways here. Odin showed mercy taking Loki in, and it doesn’t matter his intentions. Odin raised Loki alongside Thor as an equal and Loki, from what we can tell, was just as loved by their mother Frigga. He has no excuse to pretend like his background justifies his desire to see Odin dead. It’s all just to cover up his own shortcomings and envy. It’s just a damned shame that Frigga paid the price for Loki’s hateful nature.
  • Faking his own death and bespelling Odin so he could impersonate him and keep the throne on Asgard: Once again, this one is such a freaking gut-stab to the feels. I want to slap Loki so hard for lying to Thor and making that poor man think he’s lost his brother again, and after saving his life. It’s just the worst. Loki is the most self-serving, egotistical piece of crap for doing this to Thor. It makes me want to throw Odin’s words right back in his smug face: “All this because Loki desires a throne.” “It’s my birthright!” “Your birthright was to die!” As mean as it is, Odin is right. Loki was shown mercy and what does he do with it? Get his mother killed and try to usurp the throne yet again, and not because he’d be a good ruler, simply to appease his damned ego.
  • Trying to kill Valkyrie: Thank Odin he was soundly beaten senseless, but it’s messed up that Loki tries to kill Valkyrie so she can’t get in his way. It’s even worse since he forces her to relive the absolute worst moment of her life, although it ends up spurring her to do the right thing and help Thor save Asgard. Loki is such a bastard for that, for driving the knife in and twisting it.
  • Betraying Thor on Sakaar: Thankfully, Thor had enough sense to know Loki would try it again, but even after all this time, Loki is perfectly happy to throw Thor to the wolves in order to get ahead. It’s worse because he knew the Grandmaster would either continue enslaving Thor or kill him outright. He couldn’t act as if there was some other fate awaiting Thor if his betrayal had panned out for him. It’s even worse when you consider the conversation right before it where Thor tells him, “Loki, I thought the world of you.” Loki’s so quick to blame Thor, to act offended when Thor suggested Loki stay on Sakaar if they get rid of the Grandmaster. He never holds himself accountable, just using that blanket “I’m the God of Mischief” excuse in place of accepting his reprehensible actions.
  • Stealing the Tesseract from Asgard during Ragnarok: As we come to find Loki’s fate in Infinity War, all I can think is this could have been avoided if he’d left the damned thing there. Loki, Loki, Loki, why are you like this? Half of Asgard would still be alive if he hadn’t taken it from Odin’s vault before Asgard was destroyed. Does that mean that Thanos would have failed? Who knows. But Loki’s decision costs him his life, Heimdall his life, and also the lives of many innocent Asgardians thanks to his power-hungry nature. I suppose this argument is sort of answered in that Loki pays for his selfish act with his life, but it also ends up being a point for and against him, as you’ll see below.

When you add all that up, it makes quite the statement. We have strong evidence to support the “Loki is evil” argument. He is vain, self-centered, ego-centric, callous, and most definitely a sociopath of epic proportions. Everything he does is in service to himself, for the most part. He wants power and he wants attention (or as Tony so cleverly put it, “he’s a full-tilt diva.”) Loki appears to love nothing except himself and nearly everything he does serves that purpose.

But not everything.

Evidence against evil:

  • Goading Thor into fighting him on the Rainbow Bridge: the action itself doesn’t present a counterargument to the “Loki is evil” theory, but it does poke a hole in it. It’s a very carefully written scene, in my opinion, because now we see the cracks in Loki’s metaphorical armor. Loki pretends he’s this big bad wolf, but some of that young pup comes out through this scene where Thor demands that Loki turn off the Bi-Frost to prevent him from destroying Jotunheim. He’s so desperate to prove himself and to accept this “I’m a monster” mentality that he keeps pressing Thor to fight him, knowing that Thor doesn’t want to and that he wants it all to be over. He could have ended it all right then and there and it’s possible that Loki would have just served a sentence for his crimes instead of being executed, but Loki can’t accept his past and rejects everything in favor of becoming the monster of his origin. What also gives me some massive feels is a line that I’ve long debated with myself about being genuine: when Thor puts together that he can’t stop the Bi-Frost, so he starts destroying the bridge and Loki yells, “What are you doing? If you destroy the bridge, you’ll never see her again!” Ouch. You could definitely use that exclamation for both the argument and the counterargument. On the one hand, maybe Loki is just trying to manipulate Thor to get him to stop destroying the bridge. On the other hand, maybe Loki does realize what a selfless thing Thor is doing and some part of him doesn’t want Thor to suffer being stuck on Asgard away from the woman he was falling in love with. It’s a delightfully ambiguous line. Does Loki actually mean it? He still tries to stop him right after this line, but that doesn’t make it completely invalid. It’s a vastly interesting idea in and of itself. The whole struggle between the two is that Thor loves him and wants them to be brothers again, and Loki cut himself off from his adopted family and wants to rule so he doesn’t have to accept being an outcast. So does Loki actually have a remnant of his old self somewhere inside him and that’s the part of him that called out to Thor when he was destroying the bridge?
  • Loki’s reaction to Frigga’s death: Alright, here’s where the gloves come off in terms of Loki’s characterization over the course of the Marvel films. Loki and Frigga have an argument shortly before Loki guides Malekith’s lieutenant to Odin’s bedchambers and unfortunately Frigga dies defending Jane. Loki loses it. He’s a complete and utter wreck when Thor returns after Loki has gotten the news, and Loki knows it’s all his fault. He’s so wracked with guilt that he doesn’t even reveal to anyone that it was because of him. What gets me—and this is a testament to Tom’s skill as an actor—is that vulnerable little question right when Thor sees through Loki’s illusion: “Did she suffer?” Ouch. Oh man. It’s now apparent that the big bad wolf is a scared pup inside, at least for a moment. He knows he’s screwed up and he can’t take it back. It’s definitely sealed on the scene as they travel to meet Malekith on the abandoned planet: “Trust my rage.” One of the only real, true things we see from Loki is his desire to get revenge for Frigga’s death.
  • Loki saving Thor on the Night Elves’ planet: For once, he actually follows through with Thor’s plan and tries to help him stop Malekith. He even saves Thor’s life, and while it ended up being a con in the end, I still think that was a genuine moment of Loki being Thor’s brother again. He could have let Thor die, let Malekith consume the nine realms, and just rule another world in the ashes of what’s left, or he could have become a true ally of Malekith’s as well, but he didn’t. He stuck to the plan and he saved Thor when he didn’t have to and that’s surprisingly touching considering the monstrous things Loki has done in the past.
  • Loki shedding tears upon Odin’s death: Tom Hiddleston is a hell of an actor, man. I have to keep giving him props for knocking this complicated character out of the park. There are two interactions that are truly important during this scene: First, the look of shame on Loki’s face as he steps up next to Odin after apparently casting a spell so strong that it took Odin months or years (the timeline is a bit hard to tell, but Thor says it’s been two years since Ultron, so that gives you an idea of how long Odin had to have been on Earth either still bespelled or accepting his exile) and yet Odin doesn’t strike him, yell at him, or even denounce him for it. Odin says, “my sons.” Loki glances over at him, and the look of utter disbelief and vulnerability on Loki’s face is just like a kick in the nuts. That one expression shows that after all is said and done, Loki still wants a family. He still cares what Odin thinks of him, and he’s been wrapped up in this cocoon of hatred only to find out that maybe he was wrong the whole time to assume Odin rejected him for Thor, or to assume Odin hated him after all that he’d done. For just a second, Loki sees the light and sees the truth. Second, as Odin’s ashes float off into the ocean, Loki openly weeps. Wow, wow, wow, does Hiddleston kill this part of the movie. It truly tugs at the heartstrings to see that in spite of how many times Loki’s betrayed Odin, he sheds tears at his father’s passing, and after finding out that after all this time Odin still calls him son. Monsters don’t cry. Human beings do. Loki is still human. Maybe not completely, but there is definitely a part of him that isn’t a monster.
  • Trying to convince Thor not to fight the champion on Sakaar: Again, this is definitely pretty self-serving here. As much as Loki despises Thor, he knows good and well that Thor is a contender and Thor could help him overthrow the Grandmaster if they banded together. I think Loki actually meant it, personally, that he would get Thor out of the arena fights and they’d just try to survive on Sakaar in the meantime until they figured out what to do. What also seals it is Thor’s refusal to speak and it genuinely bothers Loki. He starts to prod him to reply and gets more agitated the longer Thor just sits there and stares at him. I dig that a lot. That’s a great scene, because in spite of all the horrid things Loki’s done, part of him still wants to be reunited with his brother. He just can’t help himself. He wants acceptance and he wants power and he wants to prove that he’s just as good and worthy as Thor at the end of the day. He even shows signs of worrying about Thor fighting the champion since the champion is undefeated. In the end, Loki just closes back up again and becomes his same old self, but the fact that he reveals his plan to Thor and tries to get him to go along with it suggests that he still cares. He doesn’t want to, but he does.
  • The elevator conversation during the escape from Sakaar: Thor crushes my heart into paste with this scene, which is a testament to the awesomeness of Chris Hemsworth. It hits me so hard when Loki says, “Do you truly think so little of me, brother?” and Thor just looks at him and says, “Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we were going to fight side by side forever.” Oh, my heart. It hurts so much when the camera pans back and Loki’s honestly stunned. As mentioned above with Odin’s death scene, Loki figures out that he was wrong about what Thor thought of him this whole time and wrong about their relationship as well. Thor has been forced to fight Loki time and time again, and yet he always tries to be kind or show him mercy because Thor is just that kind of loving, genuine person. Loki lies to himself and believes that Thor is a thoughtless bully who always wants to show him up, but here he realizes it’s not true and maybe it never has been. Loki constantly projects his own rejection onto Thor and uses it as an excuse for being the villain. He thinks he’s a monster, and this is what monsters do: they turn on their loved ones and they try to get ahead. For just a moment, Loki can’t help but face the fact that Thor loves him in spite of all that he’s done.
  • Loki returning to Asgard to help: again, yes, this is mostly because Loki is a full tilt diva and he wants Asgard to know he’s coming back to be their “savior.” (My God, was that not the most satisfyingly over-the-top reveal? I love you, Loki, you little extra shit.) While it’s mostly so he can get some recognition, Loki still risks his life to protect the people of Asgard and help the Revengers defeat Hela. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have gone. He would have stayed on Sakaar and tried to overthrow the Grandmaster. I like the small touch of Thor coming back from facing down Hela and Thor says, “You’re late” and a visibly worried Loki replies, “You’re missing an eye.” Oh, and Thor saying Loki’s late? Another body slam to the feels. Thor had been hoping Loki would come around and believing that he would, and Loki came through. The big dopey smile Thor has on his face when the ship shows up does me a world of good, man. I just can’t emphasize how much I love Thor’s endless forgiveness and desire to see his brother be what he could have been all along: an ally. For just one instance, Loki lives up to the potential he’s been unconsciously seeking the whole time over the course of his journey as a character. He could be that guy. He could be the hero and the brother that Thor deserves, and that he himself deserves to see and believe in. It’s such a great show of the complexities that mix together to form this ridiculous horn-having, hair-flipping demigod.
  • Loki and Thor’s scene on the ship: “I’m here.” Loki didn’t run away. He’s there with Thor in the end and Thor’s so happy about it that it makes me cry knowing it’ll all go to shit soon afterward in Infinity War. The warmth we see from the two Odinsons in that scene could make the Eternal Flame tremble in comparison. It’s one of the rare scenes that Loki shows some honesty and good will towards Thor, even if he still has ulterior motives behind the scenes.
  • Loki dies trying to save Thor. Oh, boy. Here is the mother of all convincing facts that maybe Loki isn’t entirely evil. As we approached Infinity War, my gut had been telling me that based on his character development and the arc the MCU set him on, Loki would die giving up the Tesseract in order to save Thor’s life. However, it’s one thing for me to have had this theory beforehand and an entirely different thing to watch Loki die in an attempt to save his brother. It hurt me deeply. It hurt me simply because if Thor hadn’t kept believing in Loki and loving Loki in spite of all his horrible actions, Loki would have simply let Thanos kill him. What really tears the scene is that Loki does try to just let Thanos kill Thor rather than give up the Tesseract, but then he watches his brother scream in agony at Thanos’ hands and he simply can’t go through with it. It just destroys me that there were tears in his eyes as he watched Thor suffer and in the end, he tried to do the right thing, and he died protecting his brother. It was inevitable that Loki would meet his end this way, but it still says so much about the powerful relationship we’ve seen change and grow from the first Thor movie to now. Does it invalidate all the evil he’s done in other movies? Hell no. However, it definitely is the most compelling counterargument for this essay that Loki isn’t completely evil. He made his own bed and he’s finally had to lie down in it, but he went out trying to repay his brother’s love after so many years of betrayal. It breaks my heart, honestly.

So what does it all mean, in the end?

If we go by actions alone, the bad outweighs the good and Loki is evil. However, how do you define evil? If we go by Webster’s definition, we find that evil is: “morally reprehensible” or “arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct.” Is evil simply the absence of good? If so, then no, Loki isn’t evil. There is good in him. There’s more bad than good, but it’s still there and in the end he chose to do the right thing rather than defaulting into his old ways. Furthermore, is he evil in part of the story and not in the rest? Possibly, yes. What makes Loki so hard to pin down is the fact that up until Infinity War it’s an ongoing story, so if you pluck him out at certain points, it’s still open for debate what constitutes as evil. He certainly is evil for large chunks of his overall storyline, but when he develops, the picture gets away blurry and hard to describe. In that case, what is the measure of evil? Is it the whole journey or the ending? Can the lives he’s taken be weighed against the lives he’s saved? What tips the balance on the scales of the soul?

I hope you guys know, ‘cause I sure don’t.

All I can safely say is that Loki is complex. He’s mostly bad, but the streak of good in him has honestly saved lives, so it’s hard to throw him away completely as the villain. He’s neither totally the villain nor anti-hero, but just this sassy asshole who straddles the fence. Big props to the many writers who brought our brilliant trashlord to life. He shall be sorely missed.