#so let’s talk about this #this is loki’s big opening number #this is how he introduces himself to the new realm of earth #his opening volley #his brash declaration of war #’i am loki of asgard’ #except you’re totally not loki #and you’re the only one in the room that knows it #so what are you trying to prove loki? #who are you trying to convince? #why claim your home here and now when no one is around to notice? #because no matter how much loki hates his family #no matter how much he hates his realm #no matter how much he hates the æsir #he hates not being one more #he hates being jötunn more #therein is loki’s most childish and saddest fault #he tried so desperately to remain an æsir #he killed his own father in a hopeless futile scheme to make it not so #he razed jötunheimr to try and scour their stain from his body #being a jötunn was so foul to his mind that murder and genocide became viable courses of action #he clings desperately to his æsir identity before turning around and denying thor as his brother with his next breath #so long as no is around to see it he cleaves to his title of loki of asgard #but never to his brother’s face #because then thor wins #again #thor is right again #and loki would rather be alone than be wrong again
Okay, we have to add on to this. Because is the thing about Loki in the Avengers that really gets us. See, he’s incredibly intelligent. He’s a trickster; he has to be. He had to know, right from the start, what the probably outcomes of this whole thing were. He had to. Maybe he tried not to, maybe he lied to himself, but somewhere deep down, he had to have known. But he went ahead and did all this anyway, so why?
‘Because I am the monster who parents tell their children about at night,’ he said. He was one of those children. He truly believes he’s a monster; he will look back on his life, on his childhood, and twist every memory, every action and outcome, in order to prove this to himself, because that’s what the brain does sometimes when we’re afraid and hurting. Loki hates himself; in his mind he is a monster, ruining all he touches, unworthy of his brother’s love. Not capable of being ‘fixed.’
Loki spends the entire film pissing off as many powerful people as he can, especially Thor. He probably knew that dropping Thor wouldn’t kill him, and that knife he stabbed him with? Too short to do any real damage. He knew Thor would survive. So why do it? Because he wants Thor to hate him. Because it’s easier. Because Thor caring for him hurts too much, even though he wants it too.
Because we don’t think Loki was counting on surviving this whole escapade and because Loki figures that as long as he’s going to die anyway it might as well be at the hands of the brother he loves so much, in spite of everything.
Because then Thor could be the martyr, the king who sacrificed everything, even killed his own beloved brother, in order to protect his people. And Loki would be free.
KILL ME
