NOT What Might Reasonably Happen In The Dark, Such As Getting Mugged Or Whatever, But Like. The Dark

In Defense of Loki (Masterpost)

Last updated:

April 20th, 2020

Since Tumblr mobile is a little bitch and won’t let people navigate to custom pages, I’ve decided to convert my Ragnarok Sucks compendium to a masterpost for mobile access. So here we go.

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Wait, no. Wrong universe. Sorry.

Once upon a time, I—like so many other filmgoers—enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok. If you dig deeply enough into this here Tumblr, you may even come upon instances of me defending it or celebrating certain aspects of it. So I absolutely understand that some people prefer to view it uncritically or to take what good they can find in it and leave the rest. It was reading the vast number of meta posts others within the anti-Ragnarok community here have penned that really opened my eyes to just how offensively flawed this film is. In the past few years, I have gone from uncritically loving Ragnarok to despising the movie with every fiber of my being.

Travel anywhere within the Marvel fandom on social media—be it Tumblr, Twitter or elsewhere—and you will inevitably find incredulous people asking, “Why do Loki fans hate Ragnarok so much??” With respect to the people posing such questions, our reasons are numerous and well-documented—perhaps nowhere moreso than in this masterpost. If answers are what you truly seek, you will find them below.

To be rather blunt about it, Thor: Ragnarok was an objectively insulting and out-of-character deviation from established canon. It dropped character arcs left and right; it misrepresented itself as anti-imperialist when its messaging was mixed at best; its brand of humour was immature, bullying and albeist; and it sought to actively punish and demean one character over any other: Loki. I know how conspiratorial and ridiculous that sounds, believe me. But if you stick around until the end, you will see how and why a certain portion of the fandom has arrived at that conclusion. I promise it is not coming from nowhere. Ragnarok’s Loki was a caricature, done in bad faith—and I can prove it.

Through this collection of meta-analyses, I will attempt to illustrate how and why Thor: Ragnarok was a slap in the face to Tom Hiddleston, Loki’s longtime fans, and basically every writer and director who worked so hard to create the three-dimensional, complex antihero we came to know and love over the past decade of the MCU. One part of demonstrating this betrayal by Marvel Studios will be to explicitly detail who Loki had shown himself to be from his introduction in Thor (2011) all the way through to The Dark World. We will then be directly contrasting this Loki with that of Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok—so as to illustrate that these are not different facets of one individual character (a claim often echoed within pro-Ragnarok circles), but rather that Waititi’s “Loki” is often in direct conflict with the version that Tom Hiddleston and Kenneth Branagh built from the ground up. Additionally, we will be looking at how Thor: Ragnarok as we know it came to exist, as well as breaking down direct quotes from Tom Hiddleston, Taika Waititi, Chris Hemsworth and more—with a special focus on the precise nature of where Loki has come from and how his experiences have shaped who he has become.

One final note: I recognise that this page can be rather abrasive to read for those who love Ragnarok. While I’ve tried to tone that down somewhat in my more recent edits of its contents, there is a reason I made the initial choice to write it in the style I did. Critics of Ragnarok are frequently accused of either wanting everything to be deadly serious all the time or of simply not understanding Waititi’s particular brand of irreverent humour. I hope the irony of my creative decision here is not lost on anyone—because it was entirely intentional.

Now without further ado, let us begin.

The Odinsons: An Asgardian Soap Opera

How Not To Talk To Your Son About Being A Tiny Blue Spoil Of War

New Brother, Who Dis?

Thanos Is A Big Purple Turd

No Rest For The Wicked

BREAKING: Odin Is Still A Jerk

What Makes Someone A Villain?

Everything Wrong With Ragnarok

Tom Hiddleston, Professional Thespian™

Chris Hemsworth, Professional Wanker™

How Taika Waititi Knowingly Sabotaged A Beloved Character

Why the “Ragnarok Shows Another Side Of Loki” Argument Is Crap

Ragnarok Is Crap, Part Deux

A+ Meta & Stuff

On Thor & Loki’s Broken Relationship and Odin’s A+ Parenting

Loki: Villain or Victim?

How Hero™/Villain™ Coding Robs Your Critical Thinking Skills

With All Due Respectful Disrespect: Taika Waititi F%#(ing Sucks

Ragnarok Stan Bingo

So much love to everyone who has contributed to these links (intentionally or otherwise, haha). You’re doing the lord’s work.

I don't know where it came from, but several years ago this idea popped into my head unbidden, and for some reason it tickles me. I don't know if it's funny, but I like it and I made it into a zine, I hope you enjoy it.

It lays out really nicely as 3-up spreads on A4 paper, so you can print, staple and fold it, then cut it into 3 zines. It made it really easy to print up 20 of them to trade at this art social thing I went to

micron, rotring and sharpie on printer paper, coloured and screentoned digitally, 2024

If you want a digital or physical copy

im having a flare up of back pain at school and im afraid to stand up because i know that as soon as my backpack touches my back that my vision will go black again, and a bolt of lightning will shoot up my spine again, and ill feel like im falling when im not again, and i already have a headache from the fluorescents again

and i cant go to the nurse again, because shell send me home again, and i cant get behind again, not with a history test tomorrow and a math cumulative thurday and a science quiz also on thursday

and im so fucking tired and i wish i hadnt gotten up this morning and i just want to go home and watch a movie with a heating pad on or just fall asleep forever

Can I please be excluded as a gen z too? I came to these hallowed halls to find the coolest millennials I can. I think I've achieved that

Business Insider

Gen Z is flocking to the one social media platform millennials didn't ruin

Sick of Musk and Zuckerberg, Zoomers have found a new place to network: Tumblr.

too cringe to talk to my mutuals so i just like their posts

USERNAME LORE GIVE IT TO ME NOW YOU ALL

im a male director. im so smart. and bold and edgy. look at my movie where my female lead is a prostitute. sorry, sex worker. because having sex with men for money is work. sex work is WORK just like any job… but its also super luxurious and cool and a little sexy. look how sexy this prostitute - sorry, i mean escort, i mean sex worker is. isnt she so hot and sexy? this is a job for sexy hot women. hot, legal, middle class women who are sooo cool and soooo empowered, theyre are the real face of sex work. which is work, and just like any other job. no trafficking or exploitation of poor women or underage girls here. because its a JOB. a luxurious sexy job like any other, its WORK and a LEGITIMATE JOB and - what do you mean, OSHA regulations and PPE?

i love that they kept his hair the way it is in all of the concept art bc that was one of the best parts of his physical characteristics, especially in conjunction with the rest of his design it just fits so well i love it

I want to give all of the SpiderVerse designers a kiss

not gonna lie, when i saw that a cybertruck had exploded i legit didn't realize it was some sort of premeditated thing, i just thought it was just another extreme flaw in it's design. i had no idea fireworks were involved, i honest to god thought it just did that on its own

while this is an absolutely great take on this issue, and i completely understand you frustration with the showrunners for royally screwing up our favorite character (as we probably all do on this side of the fandom), i would like to quickly remind the class of that time tom mentioned in an interview that he only had ~5% input in the series despite being an executive producer who should've had much more power (i really wish that i was able to find the picture of it that i had found as a source but i've somehow lost it in my files).

i personally cannot find it in myself to blame him for the destruction of his character because he has shown in multiple instances how much he cares about loki and his story (see his knowledge of loki in the comics as well as his understanding of norse mythology, especially compared to the rest of the cast in the thor movies alone). all of the issues that have occurred after 2013 usually can be directly connected back to the writers fundementally misunderstanding (or just not giving a fuck about) loki, or the director changing things last minute to make him look bad - as op said above about nerfing and deleting crucial scenes for his character, even since the very first movie.

as i previously said, your feelings on the matter are completely valid, and i respect your opinion. however, based on the information that i have as a fan (because we will likely never know about all of the decisions that went into this), it is unfair to be blaming tom for decisions that were originally out of his hands, or even ones that were taken away from him.

EDIT: I FOUND THE PICTURE GUYS

Any time I see someone say "Marvel knew what they were doing when they cast Tom Hiddleston" I feel a bit like...they didn't though? I think you're projecting some 4D chess grandmaster stuff onto Marvel Studios that doesn't really exist.

Tom was cast via Kenneth Branagh and yes it was PHENOMENAL casting but let's not pretend like Marvel Studios didn't spend the next near-decade and a half deleting Loki's scenes, killing him then instantly reviving him, deleting yet more of his scenes, killing him again, retconning killing him, sticking him off-screen for almost half a decade, removing yet another scene and not even compensating his fans with a DVD extra, killing him again, then suddenly remembering he's popular (again) and coming up with something to use a now-for-real-dead character as the lead but it wasn't exactly the same character (just another version of him) and now they're apparently done with him again when it's pretty obvious he'll be wheeled out of that tree at some point.

I love Loki. I love Tom's portrayal of Loki but the only people who have consistently genuinely seemed to care about the character are the fans. Because we've been given nothing but crumbs by Marvel and yet produce all this beautiful fan art, fan fic and meta. Marvel have just kinda stumbled around Loki like some perpetually confused pigeon in a hall of mirrors that keeps crashing into its own reflection shrugging "huh...what IS this? Ooh shiny!"

Knew what they were doing? More like lucked out with a very talented and charismatic actor and a dedicated fanbase that formed 2011-12 and is somehow, despite everything still here.