#th: jester loki

[tyrannuspitch]

i realised recently that i should probably clarify this, since not everyone has been reading my blog like the morning paper for two years, so:

when i compare loki to a jester, clown, or similar, it's not an insult, not even an affectionate one. i'm not calling him stupid, ridiculous, bumbling, inept, or anything along those lines; and it's not in reference to the post-TDW characterisation people often describe very unaffectionately in those terms. i'm actually saying he IS clever, calculating, and extremely deliberate in his self-presentation, because i'm calling him a performer.

this comparison originally grew out of the idea that, in less acute crisis situations, pre-canon loki might have been a kind of "class clown" to his peer group. and what i mean by class clown, specifically, is: an outsider and misfit who tries to disguise and compensate for their poor social standing by entertaining others, whether through humour or other attention-seeking stunts/performances.

there are two major pieces of evidence for this being true of loki.

the first is in T1, on the bifrost, before jotunheim. this is a brief moment, but it's still a significant one. for the first time, we see loki stepping to the front of a group, smiling, preening, and asking for attention. he practically says, "watch this."

the second is in TDW, after thor springs loki from jail. this one is emotionally messy, because (IMO) loki is not just trying to get thor's attention or approval, he's probing him, trying to work out what he's feeling - but there is still a very needy undertone to it. loki's been alone for so long and he doesn't know if he has any relationship with thor to salvage; he needs to make thor laugh or smile or even roll his eyes affectionately just to know that he still can. and so, again, he is suddenly and surprisingly taking centre stage - literally walking backwards in front of thor to make himself impossible to ignore.

between these two moments, we see loki trying to soothe his insecurity through many kinds of performance - humour and magic and even deliberate displays of manipulation/deceit. i think it makes a lot of sense for his character if you assume this is a long-standing habit.

for one thing, the mind games we see from him are often just an inversion of this - acting deliberately sinister or dangerous in order to elicit a particular negative response in his audience. for another, it really resonates with the double meaning of "tricks" - loki is not just disparaged for "tricking people", as in dishonour and deceit, but for "doing tricks", like a travelling entertainer - like someone of much lower status than a prince.

(and then we get into the servant side of the jester comparison, which is very much its own can of worms.)

#space viking tag #meta #ch: loki #s: t1 #s: t2 #th: jester loki

[tyrannuspitch]

i feel like the dark world has a reputation as the Sad Loki movie, but you know what else it is? it's the first movie that really lets loki be funny. like, he's a little funny in the avengers, but it's a joss whedon movie, so everyone has to be. it doesn't feel like individual characterisation there in the same way.

whereas the dark world really does make loki funny, and it shows him clearly trying to be funny when no-one else is. it makes him an attention seeker; a performer in a much more grounded way than "supervillain". it takes his jealousy and recklessness and affected callousness and his twitchy unease whenever he's ignored or out of control, and it channels them all into something everyday and recognisable. and i honestly think this is one of the best achievements of the film: taking the supervillain of two movies and turning him into someone you can believe thor really was not just brothers but friends with, and probably imagine knowing yourself, with just a minute or two of dialogue.

#space viking tag #the court jester loki agenda remains supreme #AND the just some guy agenda #he exists in extraordinary circumstances but he is literally just a person!!! #meta #s: t2 #ch: loki #th: jester loki #r: loki + thor

[tyrannuspitch]

okay time to try and make a coherent jesterpost. let's break this down. here is a list of ideas that *can* apply to jesters that can also, on some possibly-non-literal level, fit loki too:

a liar and a storyteller

a speaker of the truth whose truth is rarely welcome; a prophet disbelieved or a shot messenger

one who speaks in riddles

a magician; a player of tricks

a player of tricks; a traitor

a madman or a fool

a wearer of costumes, disguises and masks

one who is always performing, who must perform to stay alive

one who mimics and reflects the powerful back to them

one who acts and emotes outside the bounds of propriety

one who engages in gender/sexual deviance, just within the bounds of plausible deniability and/or convenience to the powerful

an outsider at the centre of society: both elevated and lowly

the lowly among the powerful, the coward among the brave

a servant, defined by their master

a “favourite”; tenuous, dependent power that is seen as undeserved and attracts distrust and persecution

one who mocks those no-one else can, but may have that privilege revoked at any moment

one who can be mocked or abused without consequence (a sacrifice)

one who mocks, endangers, or injures themself in order to gain or keep the approval of the powerful (a priest, and a sacrifice)

a scapegoat: punished and/or blamed for the crimes of the powerful or the collective (a sacrifice)

one who says or does the dishonourable thing so the powerful do not need to (a sacrifice)

a politician or advisor who pretends to be powerless

one whom no-one can imagine having power

one who plays at power, but always surrenders in the end

one who hears secrets and has the ear of the king

one blessed or cursed with secret knowledge (the magician, the prophet, the holy fool)

#space viking tag #oh god this is so long. WELL. I MEANT WHAT I SAID. IT'S SERIOUS TO ME!!! #odin is rarely the king in these scenarios btw #on asgard loki is primarily *thor's* jester #he is obvs doing a jestery thing on sakaar too #and i think i can see him *trying* to fill that niche with thanos. which might explain why the other hates him so much. #he's been trying to steal the other's role. #and yeah i know the final bullet point isn't very jestery but by then we've been on a journey together. i can say words recreationally <3 #meta #ch: loki #th: jester loki #th: servant prince #th: suicide + sacrifice #th: manipulation + mind control #th: mirrors + masks

[tyrannuspitch]

the way all the sets in t1 are such obvious SETS, such STAGES... the pageantry of the coronation and the way loki KEEPS the throne in the stadium long after the performance has been cancelled... the destroyer as a puppet, loki's own face as a mask... loki gathering crowds, performing, and using misdirection in the avengers... loki mimicking and mocking others' mannerisms and voices to try and make thor laugh in TDW... loki's fighting style being compared to dance... "now you see me" and the dry little "ta-da!"... loki as a magician, an illusionist, a knife-thrower, a hypnotist, a riddle-teller, an escape artist, a servant, a freak...

#space viking tag #chewing glass. JESTERISM........ #every time i think i've reached the end of it it just keeps GOING!!!!! #the dancing. and the knives. the knivesss. that's a fucking circus act! thats a trick!!! #and wasn't hawkeye the man HE brainwashes and enslaves trained in the circus too? GOD- #meta #s: t1 #ch: loki #th: jester loki #highlights

[tyrannuspitch]

further jester loki thought: his association with magpies in the comics (not sure if that has any myth/folklore roots?) = harlequin!!

#space viking tag #also mimicry and laughter ofc but i've long since realised that #it's just the pied plumage that's only just clicked #yes i know it's in the name. shut up #meta #s: comics #ch: loki #th: jester loki

[tyrannuspitch]

oh hang on a second. not only is loki morally grey, a double agent, adopted, genderweird, bisexual, ethnically planetarily ambiguous, and, of course, a liar... he also suffers from Ambiguous Disorder. #ambiguousswag.

#space viking tag #morally grey is not the best term for him it's more like tragic morally complex antihero but. that interrupts the flow #ANYWAY. let's give him some more dichotomies to break. i think that man pronounces gif as give. #meta #ch: loki #th: jester loki #th: trickster loki #th: ergi #th: monsterhood #th: disability #th: gender + sexuality

[tyrannuspitch]

also, while i'm talking about loki's lies: i have made fun of loki in the past for being bad at manipulating because of the heimdall / leaden tongue thing, but since then i've realised that he was... trying to stall heimdall by lying badly. because that's what actually serves his purpose, not lying well. BUT obviously he didn't want thor to know he was sabotaging their treason, so showing off about lying to heimdall has to be a plausible thing for him to do, so i can still use it as evidence of his general attention seeking / classclownery. and his offence at thor cutting him off is also still real (if interspersed with "how am i meant to stop this NOW"). okay i've now caught up with the rest of the class

#space viking tag #s: t1 #ch: loki #r: heimdall + loki #r: loki + thor #th: manipulation + mind control #th: playing the monster #th: jester loki

[tyrannuspitch]

all thor's friends kind of suck but fandral especially is SO patronising like can you blame loki for being bitter. every single thing he says to or about loki sounds like he's scolding a child.

#space viking tag #''mischief'' fuck you that is a grown man who's saved your life multiple times today #meta #s: t1 #ch: loki #ch: warriors three #r: loki + warriors three #th: jester loki #th: servant prince

[tyrannuspitch]

hmm. advisor, right hand man -> favourite -> jester (fool) -> folly (madness) -> sorcery (weakness) -> monsterhood (foreignness, queerness) -> unbelonging (the spare) -> sacrifice (always). I'm Connecting The Dots

#space viking tag #(<- not connecting shit) #meta #ch: loki #th: jester loki #th: suicide + sacrifice #th: servant prince #th: monsterhood #th: ergi #th: disability #th: ethnicity #r: loki + thor

[tyrannuspitch]

the word harlequin is somehow (muddily) connected to mediaeval folklore demons. and. harlequin is a shade of green...

#space viking tag #it just doesn't end. #i need to do some proper research into the etymology bc there are SO many theories for it #they're all devilish in one way or another though #meta #th: jester loki #ch: loki

[tyrannuspitch]

thought that just occurred to me: if you try and reconcile the sets of thor 1 and thor 2, then... maybe the darker stone hall from t2 is the "normal" throne room... and loki really, objectively IS doing something profoundly weird by choosing to keep the throne in that massive empty stadium in t1. holding court on a stage with the audience long gone. refusing to let the aborted coronation end. hmmm

#space viking tag #meta #s: t1 #s: t2 #ch: loki #th: jester loki

[tyrannuspitch]

thor meta directory

hello and welcome, i'm lucian and i've been analysing mcu thor in excruciating detail since march 2022. this directory is intended to help me and anyone else interested to navigate my backlog of thor posts, which were all initially grouped under one umbrella tag.

a few notes:

my main focus is on the asgardian royal family, and my favourite portrayals of them come from 2011-2013. i have a bit of a loki-centric bias, but i do my best to be self-aware. i think all members of the family are terrible people and i love them for it <3

older posts should be taken with a pinch of salt. my opinions have developed a lot since i first started posting, but i've left pretty much everything up for archival purposes.

sometimes my opinions are strong, but they're never personal, even when i express them in hyperbolic ways. i promise i don't really hate you because of a marvel movie :3

to prevent clutter, source, character, relationship and theme tags are only applied to posts that also qualify for a meta or concrit tag.

some of the theme tags overlap a lot, but i'm doing my best.

most of the theme tags don't have an immediately obvious "thesis" post, but hopefully you'll get a sense of them by scrolling through. i'm also happy to answer any questions on this!

at the point when i organised this archive, it contained 1600 posts, so please excuse any tagging mistakes or typos, and let me know so i can fix them :D

finally: my inbox is open and i love talking about thor! comments, questions, suggestions, discussion, and lighthearted/friendly debate are all very welcome :D also, if you send me music associations or fanart, i'll love you forever - i probably haven't seen it, since i hardly follow anyone in this fandom. (just please no th-rki - i'm firmly in the familial relationship camp.)

okay that's all. have fun! 💚💙💜

main tag (completely unfiltered: 1600+ posts, including liveblogging, thinking aloud, silly jokes, complaints, and just about every other thought i've ever had)

by post type:

meta (600+ posts) - meta highlights (100+ posts) - concrit/negativity - text reblogs - fanart - gifs - stills - edits (mine)

by source:

thor 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - avengers 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - loki tv - other mcu - comics - thor: tales of asgard (cartoon) - other marvel - myth + history - fandom - other

by character:

thor - loki - odin - frigga - laufey - hela - malekith - thanos - the other - sif - warriors three - heimdall - valkyrie - jane - erik - sylvie - mobius - kang - avengers - fury

note: tumblr has a link limit! i've had to remove the links to supporting characters' tags to stay within it, but the format is: /tagged/ch:%20laufey, /tagged/ch:%20hela, etc.

by relationship:

thor: frigga - loki - odin - sif - w3 - jane - erik - avengers - fury

loki: frigga - odin - laufey - sif - w3 - thanos - the other - sylvie -mobius - kang - erik - jane - avengers

odin: frigga - laufey - hela - kang - fury - bor

house of odin (for when it's really the entire family at once - not an umbrella tag)

by theme/topic:

abuse + empire - fate + hierarchy - suicide + sacrifice - imprisonment + exile - devotion + treachery - honour + villainy - cycles + scapegoats - manipulation + mind control - order + chaos - war + apocalypse - undeath + afterlife - the threefold death - trickster loki - jester loki - servant prince

childhood + immortality - gender + sexuality - ergi - sorcery - prophecy - disability - ethnicity - godhood - monsterhood - playing the monster - mirrors + masks - eye motif

expressions of love - love as horror - neck/throat motif - grief - codependence - odinsons as twins - redemption - mjolnir - saint thor - thor's sinister side

worldbuilding - modern psychiatry - etymology - mimesis

and finally, my ao3 is here. i'm not as active as i'd like to be, but i'm working on it!

#space viking tag #this took one hundred thousand years

[tyrannuspitch]

just thinking about how loki is an attention seeker (affectionate) and canonically fun at parties / good at raising the room’s energy, as of the loki show, and therefore how strongly his absence would be felt in the immediate post-battle feast after thor 2011

like, i don’t think thor would consider that feast disrespectful, because it’s an opportunity to regroup and comfort each other and remember the fallen and give thanks for your survival as much as it is a “celebration”, nothing about that says that they’re happy about or indifferent to loki’s apparent death, but... still. there would be such a noticeable void :(

#space viking tag #we don't get to see much of loki being loud and sometimes-charming-sometimes-annoying in thor 2011 #because they're focusing on his sneaky-outsider-with-suppressed-rage side #but both are undoubtedly part of him and i think feasts would be one of the main places the former showed up #he is a show-off and an entertainer and a little bit of a people pleaser #and team spirit would be high so he would feel more like part of something... #</3 #meta #s: t1 #ch: loki #r: loki + thor #r: loki + sif #r: loki + warriors three #th: grief #th: jester loki

[tyrannuspitch]

i keep getting interrupted but i am indeed still thinking about those deleted scenes from thor 2011. i will get back to the ones with frigga soon but hmm. in the meantime. here are some other thoughts, specifically on how they portray thor and loki’s relationship

so. i have found two scenes that got cut / heavily edited featuring these two. and i see exactly why they cut them both, but... hmm. i am thinking.

number 1: a scene before thor’s coronation where they’ve just talking to establish their relationship. this is uhh. not very good. it’s unsubtle, it’s an unnecessary prologue, and it features loki being mean to a servant for no reason and thor not caring. (i know they’re meant to be entitled, but come on.) HOWEVER. it shows a warmth and a much less intense form of conflict which i think could have been really really useful for grounding their relationship if they’d found a better way to include it.

number 2: an alternative version of the scene with the table flip. i... do think i agree with them changing this, but it’s interesting to think about. in this version, thor comes off as waaay less pushy - he waits for all his friends to agree to come rather than assuming it, and it shows loki looking shocked (possibly touched but also possibly alarmed) to be invited. which is interesting, because the impression i always got from the canon scene was that loki was included whether he liked it or not. like, there was never a question of him being excluded from the quest/mission/whatever. he was excluded from something, but it was from being asked nicely.

i think the canon version does make later conflict make far more sense, but... streamlining can be a cruel god i think. the canon version, properly understood, must be contextualised by thor being genuinely extremely alarmed by the security breach. he’s ploughing through everyone and everything because he’s concerned with protecting the kingdom as a whole. under more normal circumstances, he would probably be less pushy and, particularly, less cold to his brother. and that doesn’t necessarily come across when this is almost our first impression of him! idk how to fix that. but. hmm.

also, there’s another dimension in both these scenes which gets cut: actual references to loki and mischief. thor says he’s “incapable of sincerity” and loki himself jokes about being unwise. the more serious tone of the final film means pre-breakdown loki mostly comes across as quiet and calculating, so the one time someone does mention mischief it’s uhh. kind of surprising. and we don’t have anything genuinely light to tie it to, only things that could also be called schemes. so just like with thor, we don’t get a particularly rounded impression of loki’s personality / reputation / social situation before everything goes downhill.

idk. you win some you lose some, i guess. i’m very glad they took the care to make the conflict between the brothers make sense, and that means tension and coldness and anxiety. but i do wish we’d seen even one more moment of genuine warmth. all we’ve got in the finished film is that smile when they were kids, and with nothing to ground it in the present, you feel the distance :/

#space viking tag #rambling aimlessly #meta #constructive complaining #s: t1 #ch: loki #ch: thor #r: loki + thor #th: servant loki #th: jester loki

[tyrannuspitch]

wait hang on a fucking second does that make loki like. the space-viking-royal-entourage equivalent of class clown. Interesting.

#space viking tag #class clown as in slightly lonery nd kid who covers his anxieties and loneliness by being Extremely Loud #NOT class clown as a euphemism for bully #i mean yes we know that he both misjudged pranks and lashed out at times #but once again: the power dynamic is not in his favour #anyway that makes him potentially one of the kids i wld have actually talked to at school sjfkdsfjk #[handshake emoji] #meta #s: t1 #ch: loki #th: jester loki

[tyrannuspitch]

also thinking about how when loki is about to try (and fail :/) to smooth-talk heimdall, it’s the most confident/assertive we see him before everything goes south. like he steps out in front of the group with this smug smile, like, “watch this”, and everyone goes along with it

there are many many reasons loki manipulates people. but i think one of them is definitely... attention-seeking. not just from the person in question, but from his friends and family and especially thor. thor and all his friends are elite warriors and loki can’t outshine them in that respect, but this is something where he can outshine them all. something to show off about, something to make him special. 

and you know what. it may not have worked in this case, but i think it often did. i can easily see this as part of their (thor and loki’s) regular dynamic. competitive, but also with reluctant-or-not mutual admiration, and also just... really enjoying each others’ company. having fun together. 

one of the first things loki does when he gets out of his cell in the dark world is loudly annoy thor, and sure, he’s bitter, but i think he’s also falling into an old pattern of trying to make his brother laugh. it doesn’t work then because he’s laughing at his brother, and only breaking the tension for himself, but... you can easily see him doing that while mocking thor’s enemies instead of his friends, can’t you? or with more gentle teasing that wouldn’t actually offend?

(okay, idk how often loki would actually succeed at gentle teasing. i think he might often overdo it, since he’s full of Suppressed Rage. but that doesn’t mean always, or even the majority of the time.)

final note: both when loki is trying to trick heimdall, and when he’s teasing thor in the dark world, he steps in front of thor and walks backwards. like he’s stepping onto a (moving, invisible) stage! and also literally, visually demanding attention!

#space viking tag #s: t1 #s: t2 #ch: loki #r: loki + thor #th: jester loki #meta #ch: heimdall