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1Entire New entries go on the bottom. Headscratchers for the sequel go [[Headscratchers/ThorTheDarkWorld here]]
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3[[foldercontrol]]
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6[[folder:Magic=science?]]
7* One thing that kind of bugs me: Given Thor's statement "Your ancestors called it magic, you call it technology, but where I come from, they are one and the same", the movieverse seems to follow ClarkesThirdLaw. But if that's the case, how does Loki pull off his "magic" without any visible devices of any sort? Are they implanted inside of him? Is he a cyborg?
8** My impression; Loki has mastered abilities that do have a logical basis and explanation (science) but are too far beyond what we know for our scientists to be able to make a stab and understanding them (magic). We make a distinction; the Asgardians do not.
9** Note that all Asgardians, by the look of it, are superhuman. It could be that their Asgardian natural abilities can take multiple forms, depending on how they choose to develop them. One trains for greater physical ability, another learns how to shoot energy blasts and create illusions. This applies doubly if my theory that the Asgardians are descendants of a prior age of superhumanity is true; part of their Asgardian science is an understanding of how metahuman powers work.
10** So, by that token, Thor and Loki's powers would essentially be souped-up version of Storm and the Scarlet Witch's powers? (Weather manipulation and ability to use magic)
11** Yes, sort of. There are three bits I would emphasize as far as my theory goes. The first is that Asgardian "magic weapons" would probably be, at least in part, powered and controlled by Asgardian natural powers. So when an Asgardian learns and masters a weapon, they literally connect to it and fuel it with their own might. If this theory is correct, than any Asgardian device more complicated than a simple object probably can't be used properly by a mortal, because they can't interface with it. The second is that "physical might" is its own valid power, which Thor (and most Asgardian warriors) clearly have in excess of Loki. Not all Asgardians are equal. Third and finally, I would emphasize that to Asgardians, their powers are likely ''trainable''. Thor isn't as bricky as he is, just because he is, but because he sought to make himself bricky. Loki didn't just pull illusion powers out of his ass, he ''learned'' how to do them.
12** So you're basically saying the movie Asgardians are Jack Kirby's Eternals? Because that's exactly what the Eternals do, they all have the same powers but focus on different aspects of them resulting in one of them being super-fast while another is super-strong. They even have the whole "mistaken for gods" thing.
13** Seeing as how Loki's powers are explicitly called magic by the Asgardians themselves I'd say they're just that. The film actually leaves enough wiggle-room for magic to still exist and the Asgardians to use a combination of it and science instead of just using science that looks like magic.
14** Presumably the Asgardians have developed a Grand Unified Theory that unites what mortals call science and magic -- maybe what we call magic is, in Asgardian terms, bits of the universe that can be controlled directly, and science is the stuff that can only be manipulated and taken advantage of with tech and stuff rather than directly made a plaything of our thoughts?
15** The problem here is you equating science with technology. Science is the rational way of looking at something, guessing at how it works, and then testing it to make sure your guess is correct. If you could perform magic ''and'' get consistent effects from performing it in a certain way you would not find separate from science either. Only if its effects remained unpredictable after multiple tests or its use required interfaces beyond your understanding would you then separate science.
16** In the comics, which may or may not have any bearing on the films, "Magic" in the Marvel universe is simply a different kind of science, from a different aspect of reality than the one we know, with a completely different set of rules than physics as we understand them. While it does ''have'' rules, they are so frustratingly alien to us that they piss off scientists like Reed Richards and Tony Stark to no end, because they can't really understand them.
17** In ''Film/{{Doctor Strange|2016}}'', the Ancient One presents an MRI scan as a true but narrowly focused map of the human body. Science is a single approach to understanding, while magic and mysticism are another. The idea isn't that magic and science are the same thing, it's that to a civilization that takes a holistic approach to knowledge the distinction between the two is downplayed or meaningless.
18[[/folder]]
19
20[[folder:Bifrost opening in New Mexico]]
21* So, why does the Bifröst open in New Mexico and not in, say, Norway? It seems like the end of the bridge is "locked" in the same place of the realm, as they had to retreat to the exact same point to take the bridge back in Jotunheim and after defeating the Destroyer, and the "seal" imprinted in the ground is just one, even after some travels. It can be explained by "the realms shift position over time", but still...
22** Also, the deliver point for the travelers seem to be always the same, but why did the Mjölnir ended some distance away, and made a crater? I know this can be used to say "the deliver point is not always the same", but the only instance of a different deliver point is this one and the deliver procedure is different (crater, not seal), as if Odin made it on purpose to separate Thor form the hammer (If this is the case, why deliver the hammer so close to Thor's location?). It seems like Odin used a lot of power to "tweak" the aim of the Bifröst, but could only manage to miss by a few kilometers.
23** We saw the Bifrost open a portal to Tonsberg in the beginning of the movie so it's likely that the Bifrost can indeed take you to different places in the same realm. The theory that Yggdrasil is actually a natural wormhole network has been thrown around on this page and if its true then that could tell us a few things about the Bifrost. Instead of opening its own bridges it could fire some sort of beam or matter stream into Yggdrasil itself and you come out of one of the "Roots" of the tree with these "Roots" being pre-established but closed openings in the network. This means that sure it can take you to Norway or New Mexico or a hundred other locales on the planet but it can only deposit you on one of those predetermined places. As for why the Hammer fell so far away? It looks like it emerged from the matter stream at a very high altitude (possibly even low orbit) which means that it simply drifted off course as it fell to earth.
24[[/folder]]
25
26[[folder:Nature of the Nine Realms]]
27* Something I'm not entirely clear on. The Asgardians and Jotuns are both supposed to be SufficientlyAdvancedAliens wielding a mix of super science and magitec, with Asgard and Jotunheim as their respective home worlds and Alfheim and the other 3 realms besides Midgard not actually visited in the story. Fair enough. But were the 9 realms supposed to be different planets in the same universe, or other parallel universes that were all somehow linked to Earth?
28** It bears noting, I think, that the only one to mention other dimensions is Thor, who himself admits that he only understands how Bifrost works via MetaphoricallyTrue LiesToChildren. The visuals themselves suggest one universe.
29** I think its deliberately vague. The only theory posted was Bifrost uses different dimensions by Erik at the end in a scene where he would not be lying. Asgard is a floating landmass that somehow keeps its water, but one could argue that is something about how the Asgardians made it. It's unclear if they truly are different planets or dimensions or some combination.
30** Since Erik and Jane serve as the modern, scientific perspective on Asgard, his describing Asgard to Nick Fury as another dimension is probably meant to be the closest answer. It's worth noting that the Einstein-Rosen bridge Jane talks about (which turns out to be the Bifrost as seen from Earth) is a real concept: it's a hypothetical wormhole inside a black hole that leads to another universe.
31** I'm biased here because HumanAliens like the ones of Krypton annoy me, but I tend to think that the "Nine Realms" are all aspects of the same planet. Humans look like Asgardians because they are in fact related some how, whether or not Odin actually created mankind here -- he probably didn't, but who knows? Whatever they are, they're somehow connected in a way that Earth and wherever the Chitauri came from are not. I tend to think Asgard, Midgard, Jotunheim, etc... all occupy the same space somehow.
32** Nope. The end credits show that Asgard does not occupy the same place, or even the same galaxy for that matter.
33[[/folder]]
34
35[[folder:Construction of the Bifrost]]
36* How is that the Asgardians seemed unable to rebuild the Bifrost? They treat its destruction with such a finality, like "well, guess we are stuck here".
37** Yeah, you would assume that since they control it that they have also built it at some point right? And even then, some of the Asgardians like Odin, Loki, and Sif were able to transport themselves and others to the mortal realm. So this shouldn't be a huge problem if not for RuleOfDrama.
38** Sif and Odin both used the Bifrost when they traveled to other worlds. Loki was the only one who seemed capable of finding other avenues.
39** I was referring to the comics, where that ability was established in canon.
40** (Apologizing for potential dickishness in advance) This isn't the comics.
41** Who says they are unable to rebuild it, fully? Thor said to Heimdall that 'Midgard was lost to us', but it was clear to all involved that the context he meant that statement was 'Jane Foster and the other humans I met are lost to me.' For that, being able to rebuild Bifrost ''eventually'' wouldn't mean much, if "eventually" means "years or decades later."
42** ^ This. We're talking about immortals, and the Bifrost bridge is apparently difficult enough to make that they only bothered with one (plus the whole destroying worlds thing). Even if it only takes a hundred years to build a new one, the humans he met won't live that long.
43** That made sense, until I realized that it will probably take humans less than a decade to find a way into Asgard considering that the Avengers movie is coming out next year and Jane will be relevant in any Thor-related plot line. So humans can build a wormhole from scratch faster than the Asgardians can even though they built the one before and possess magical powers?
44** There is this guy who, if given a week, a cave, and a box of scraps...
45** I wouldn't bet on Jane playing a large role in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'' -- filming is just about done, and Natalie Portman isn't listed as being in it.
46** I'm sure there's a trope about this. Asgardians are immortal. They're in no hurry to get it done because they've got all the time in the world. If it takes a hundred years (and for all we know maybe it did take hundreds of years to build the Bifrost the first time) that's no skin off their noses. Conversely, Humans are often noted in fiction to be able to accomplish a great deal in a short amount of time because they've got such limited lifespans that they have to squeeze everything in to a scant 60-100 years.
47** It's also possible that they're not just trying to rebuild Bifrost, they're trying to re-design it. Given that Loki nearly destroyed Jotunheim with it, they might be trying to ensure that when the re-build it, it'll have safety features that prevent that kind of abuse in the future.
48** Also, I'd imagine there's a difference between 'A Wormhole Generator' and 'Bifrost', seeing as the latter can teleport anything to anywhere in the universe, so that even for Asgardians recreating it would be non-trivial. Plus, for all their power Asgardians don't have access to a Cosmic Cube like [[FunWithAcronyms SHIELD]] does. But mostly, I'd just imagine Thor was speaking figuratively and dramatically [[LargeHam as is his want]].
49** There's also the possibility that they made it in the first place using an Infinity Stone, which they don't have access too anymore.
50** By Thor two it was rebuilt.
51[[/folder]]
52
53[[folder:Thor knowing of the enchantment]]
54* When Thor tries and fails to lift Mjolnir, he instantly knows this is because he is no longer worthy -- even though Odin only added that spell to the hammer after tossing Thor off Bifrost...
55** If I recall correctly, he saw the mark on the Hammer, the same one that appeared when Odin put the spell on it. I guess Thor being Thor, immediately knew what was going on.
56** Yeah, I figured those symbols were Asgardian (Nordic?) writing and Thor realized what was going on that way.
57** That symbol's been used in the comics recently, at least, and seems to be either Odin's personal symbol or a seal that he uses.
58** Either way, it's not a hard deduction to make. If Odin just took his power away, and then he found he couldn't lift his hammer, assuming that Odin had flipped the magic lightning switch to 'off' isn't unreasonable.
59** I'm not certain that Thor realized the "not worthy" aspect. I think he thought, as Loki puts it in his visit, that Odin was being cruel -- putting his hammer so close, but not allowing him to use it. When he saw the "Odin Symbol", he just knew an enchantment had been placed on it -- not what the enchantment was.
60** Yeah. Thor ''definitely'' didn't know why he couldn't lift his hammer, which is why he fully believes Loki when he says Thor will ''never'' be able to lift it, and why he didn't say to himself later, "Hey, I just evacuated a town! That's probably gonna make me worthy, huh? Hey, Jane, can you give me another ride to the crater? Trust me this time." He just knows he has been denied the power to wield what had been established as his birthright, and as such, he must have ''really'' screwed up with his dad, and he doesn't always get what he thinks he's supposed to get but hasn't earned.
61[[/folder]]
62
63[[folder:Teleporting an entire army at one time]]
64* At the beginning of the film, when Odin and the army Bifrost in to fight the Frost Giants, how did they all teleport at once like that? From what I saw, the Bifrost Bridge was ''not'' that large.
65** They didn't. The Asgardians are already on the ground when Odin beams in. You can see the army if you watch the scene in slow motion.
66[[/folder]]
67
68[[folder:Why use horses?]]
69* Okay, so for the Aesir, magitech is super-advanced. I can accept that. It makes bladed weapons better than projectile weapons -- I can accept that, probably has to do with sharpness and weight enhancing plus logistics of mystically enhancing bullets individually. But, why horses? Judging from the shape and placement of Asgard, they have anti-gravity and air generation for a city-sized island of land floating in space, but they still rely on equestrian mobility?
70** Mostly I'd go with 'rule of cool' as an in-universe explanation. Just looking at Asgard, you can see that their culture places tremendous value on aesthetics and drama. And if you're in no particular hurry to get anywhere, riding a horse is just nicer. Especially horses which are presumably both enchanted and genetically enhanced. Also we never see anything of the Asgardian world beyond the city of Asgard, but it's implied (and supported in myth) that the rest of it and most of the other realms are wild. If you're going on a quest in the wild a horse makes a lot more sense, since you can find feed for it most anyplace and you have no problems traveling off road.
71** Also, it's probable safe to assume anything in the Asgardian realm is far superior to its Earth variant. In the comics a flying horses are pretty much equal or superior to the modern aircraft. In the film, Odin had a horse with eight-legs. So for them horses being equal or superior to cars works.
72** I would be deeply amused if, in a future Thor movie, some mortal soldiers from Earth open fire on a mounted Asgardian, and not only do the bullets bounce of the Asgardian, but off his horse too...
73** The big headscratcher here is, isn't that horse technically Odin's grandson???
74** [[{{Squick}} No, please]] [[BrainBleach don't go there]]
75** Yup. An eight-legged horse; that's got to be Sleipnir Lokisson.
76** MCU Sleipnir isn't necessarily the child of Loki, given that MCU Loki hasn't demonstrated any shapeshifting abilities. His origins completely aside, Sleipnir is an iconic element of Odin's myth in his own right and was probably included solely because of that, in the same way that the explanation of the loss of Odin's eye is also completely different in the MCU but was presumably included because Odin is iconically one-eyed.
77** In the myth, Sleipnir is capable of running between the worlds without aid of the Bifrost, which is how Odin is able to show up unexpectedly. For that matter so can Thor and his goats. The movie weakens some of the Aesir in that it seems they ''all'' need the rainbow bridge except for Loki, who never demonstrated the ability to cross worlds without help in the myths we know of.
78[[/folder]]
79
80[[folder:Only ''Nine'' Realms?]]
81* Relatedly, ''nine'' realms, with Yggdrasil being space as we know it? Its made clear that they have access to all of Yggdrasil, all of a galactic cluster far bigger than we can see easily from Earth, and can easily see all that space in multiple dimensions in case there's only life on any given planet in one particular one. And, with all that space, all those dimensions, all that vision, there's only ''nine'' inhabited planets they can see? What about the Kree and Skrulls and such?
82** First I'm not entirely sure whether the realms were meant to be other planets in the same universe or actual different dimensions associated with Earth (see my own headscratcher above). But if they were different planets, I'd say that 'The Realms' refers to the set of nine inhabited planets that share a mix of sufficiently advanced technology and magitec of a power comparable to the Asgardians, while having a long shared history of inter-world commerce enabled by the Bifrost. In fact, going by the Myths, you could also say that the races of The Realms share a common heritage and later diverged. Maybe these nine planets form a natural wormhole network that allowed the original expansion?
83** The post-credits scene mentioned "dimensions." Based on this and the lack of the use of the world planets I take it the nine "realms" are nine different dimensions that are linked by naturally occurring wormholes/gates like in the comics. The Bifrost and other such devices are just safe means to access these gates. Asgard at least seems to operate by different rules of physics by being a flat Earth instead of a round planet so it is a different dimension. So the nine realms are only those worlds the wormholes naturally go to. There could easily be other planets/dimensions out there, but the Asgardians do not overly concern themselves with them. However, based on some of the items in Odin's vault its clear Odin at least takes somewhat of an interest in them.
84** It would beg the question of why Earth ( Midgard ) counts, given its relatively primitive tech/magic base and squishy mortal residents. However, bear in mind there are enough different realms in both Norse myth and Thor comics to easily provide for nine of them ''and'' Midgard.
85** That would probably indicate shared heritage, since Midgard does seem to be the odd world out. Although, given the kind of people we put out whenever we get an age of heroes going (it's a good bet Hercules and Ramma and such were part of an earlier generation of Metahumans) it may well be that we DO compare to the Asgardians. Or the Frost Giants at least.
86** If the myths about the Asgardians creating humans (or some humans) are true then they're precursors for our planet and so it's part of the realms by default. Or if the reason the giants asgardians and others look 'humanoid' is because they're the descendants of an ancestor species, and wound up on the nine worlds, then that's what defines the realms.
87** Asgard and the other Realms could be pocket dimensions linked to earth via a wormhole network. They might be able to see the rest of the universe but not necessarily access it which would also explain why the Jotuns tried to invade earth. We may be the only realm with easy access to the universe at large while everyone else needs to travel along Yggdrasil.
88** Midgard is the remains of the first giant Ymir. That is why it is counted as one of the nine worlds. That humans live on it is kind of incidental, we are just the result of Odin and his two brothers playing around on Ymir's remains and he only keeps interest in us because our souls may prove useful to him at Ragnarok.
89** Thor Ragnarok mentions that Hela and Odin went on a galactic conquest spree, but to Hela's chagrin they stopped at nine realms. Given that Asgard's history speaks of only those nine, it may be that Odin decided to stop with the exploration and conquest and stay with simpler non-hostile negotiations.
90[[/folder]]
91
92[[folder:Where did the Bifrost end up?]]
93* Is the Bifrost on Earth now?
94** It seems rather unlikely; when we last saw it it was floating off into space. It would have to take a while for it to travel to Midgard/Earth, considering the placement of each in Yggdrasil.
95** Then again, Loki made it back to Earth. You never know...
96** As per Avengers, Loki made it to some unknown corner of space where Thanos happened to be, so the Bifrost chamber-thingy (which fell first) is either there or somewhere else.
97[[/folder]]
98
99[[folder:Jotunheim being just a frozen wasteland]]
100* One of the issues I had with the film was Jotunheim, the world of the giants looked like the planet Hoth. Every bit of it we were shown had it covered in nothing but ice. In comics and myth it is usually shown to be more like Earth, but a much harsher land with a much harsher climate. What would the difference be between the film's version of Jotunheim and Niflheim, the Norse world of ice and fog? Or could one explain it that the giants came originally from Niflheim and Jotunheim was one of the worlds they conquered or converted with the Casket of Ancient Winters?
101** Bear in mind their civilization was previously powered by the Cask. Jotunheim looked like a broken down wasteland probably in part because it ''was'' a broken down waste, deprived of its power source.
102** Let's also remember that in the myth, it's a slightly harsher version of Scandinavia. You know, where it's cold and frozen most of the time.
103** Except it isn't really all that cold and frozen in the parts of Scandinavia that were inhabited by Vikings -- certainly not ''most'' of the time (the average temperature is over zero for more than half of the year -- and it was so back in the Viking era, too). And that myth, as the initial entry pointed out, already ''had'' a world for "frozen wasteland". Jotunheim is supposed to be an oversized place -- harsher in the sense that its dangers are proportionate to its inhabitants, who are, lest one forget, only vaguely separated from the gods of the mythology (there are ''several'' cases of giants becoming gods by marriage and/or adoptive siblingship).
104** How much of Jotunheim did we actually ''see''? We was a few square miles of it. That's kind of like showing up in Death Valley and concluding all of Earth is barren wasteland, or dropping into Antarctica and concluding the whole planet is a frozen wasteland, or dropping into NYC and concluding the whole planet is a city filled with rude cabdrivers. We saw very little of the entire realm.
105** We see Jotunheim from orbit when the Bifrost hits it. It looked like an ice world, or at least a [[{{Franchise/StarTrek}} Class-M]] world going through an ice age.
106** The concept of the Nine Realms/Nine Worlds isn't clear even in Norse Mythology, so it's no surprise the MCU plays it fast and loose. In some references to Norse myth, Helheim and Niflheim are two separate realms, in others Hel is in Niflheim (as it is in the MCU) and Nidavellir is the Ninth Realm (which contradicts as both Nidavellir and Svartalfheim are referenced as the realm of the dwarves). It seems as of Thor:Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War, Part 1, the MCU seems to have gone in the direction of Niflhel being one realm and Nidavellir being the 9th realm. But it's definitely a bit muddled with the adding of "ice" to Jotunheim, which was not part of the mythology.
107[[/folder]]
108
109[[folder:Hogun's accent]]
110* Why does Hogun have an accent? He's an Asgardian, he should talk like everybody else.
111** Actually, in the comics at least, Hogun isn't an Asgardian. He just likes hanging out with them so much that he's more or less considered an honorary Asgardian. Dunno if that applies to the movieverse, though.
112** Confirmed in ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld''. After helping bringing peace to his home realm, he decides to remain there for a while.
113** (For those wondering, he's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanir Vanr]].)
114[[/folder]]
115
116[[folder:Other Giants from Jotunheim]]
117* Now, I can't say I'm as knowledgeable about comics as others, but doesn't Jotunheim have other Giants besides the Frost Giants? I think I've heard of Mountain Giants and Storm Giants living there. Also, since Trolls do not have their own world (at least in Myth), since they are allies of them, do they live in Jotunheim, too?
118** In the comics Jotunheim is generally portrayed like a forest, woodland environment that just has a much harsher climate than Asgard or most of the other nine worlds. Other types of giants do live there like those you mentioned along with various other evil creatures like boar-gods, wolf-gods, hags, etc. Trolls sometime live in Jotunheim. Other times beneath the surface of various other worlds. In the comics the city of Asgard is usually just the tip of a very large landmass that has sometimes been shown to have other kingdoms. The other realms often are subdivided into different kingdoms. The Hoth version of Jotunheim as portrayed in the film is usually closer to the comics version of Nifelheim, the land of ice which is also home to frost giants, storm giants, the dead, and other monsters.
119[[/folder]]
120
121[[folder:Where did Sleipnir go?]]
122* When Odin goes to rescue everyone at Jotunheim, he's on his horse. When they return to Asgard, the horse is nowhere to be seen. Where did it go? Is it even real or magic and it comes and goes when Odin says?
123** It has eight legs (look close when it lands, it totally does) so it probably is magical in some way.
124** It's [[AllThereInTheManual all there in the myth]]. But yes, Sleipnir (the horse) ''does'' have eight legs, is totally magic, and probably can be summoned and dismissed like an [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX Aeon]].
125** Not to mention all the horses seem to just magically appear/vanish as needed. Thor & Co ride out to the Bifrost, then dismount and the horses go... where? Loki goes from being on foot in the palace to racing mounted across the Bifrost incredibly quickly, and the horse is definitely not hanging out on the bridge during the final battle.
126[[/folder]]
127
128[[folder:How did the Jotuns get to Earth?]]
129* How did the Frost Giants travel to Earth in the first place? They don't seem to possess any advanced technology.
130** Likely they lost much of it thanks to the war.
131** I always kind of figured that the Casket of Ancient Winters had something to do with it -- like the Tesseract in Captain America -- and when the Giants lost the war they were sent home and the Casket taken from them so they couldn't teleport anymore.
132** Maybe that was the original purpose of the Tesseract? It's said to belong to Asgard, so it's possible that the Tesseract was used to travel between worlds until Asgard developed the Bifrost and didn't need it anymore.
133[[/folder]]
134
135[[folder:Moving Mjolnir]]
136* So, quick question: could Mjolnir be moved by using an excavator or something to lift some of the ground along with it?
137** Maybe. In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', the Helicarrier didn't stop when Thor dropped it. Depends on how it is measuring "movement." Cutting out a big slab of the earth it's sitting on would probably be fine, but I think an excavator would trigger the hammer's "Something is trying to move me, stop it," since it disturbs the earth so much.
138** Given the Magitek nature of technology I just assumed that the hammer has it's own A.I. and is smart enough to know when "the worthy" is about to pick it up. Also it would know the difference between being on a helicarrier and the earth and know enough not to rip a hole in either since everything in the universe is constantly moving.
139** Even if you could lift it with an excavator, there would be no point. It's power only works for the worthy, so even if some average joe were to separate it from the ground it was on, it would be just as useless to him as it had been when it was trapped in the ground.
140[[/folder]]
141
142[[folder:Bifrost storms detected on Earth]]
143* The one thing that bothers me and I couldn't find anyone mentioning it before: If the storms on Earth are supposedly due to Bifrost opening, which probably happens on somewhat random schedule, how come Jane was able to predict previous 17 occurrences (including the last one, which definitely wasn't planned by anyone beforehand).
144** Perhaps time flows at different rates in Midgard and Asgard. From Asgard's perspective the Bifrost was only open for a few moments, but from Earth's perspective it was more than 17 days of weird storms before Thor finally touched down.
145[[/folder]]
146
147[[folder:Norse Mythology in the MCU]]
148* It's possible to explain a lot of the discrepancies between Norse mythology and Marvel Asgard by supposing that the humans messed things up in transcription. However, in that case, how did myth-makers on Midgard realize that Loki was a Jotun and Laufey's son (even if they thought he was Loki's mother instead of his father) ''centuries'' before most of Asgard (and Loki himself) found out? Are we to suppose that the Marvelverse has a different version of the mythology that omits the detail of "Loki Laufeyjarson"?
149** Vikings were actually a bunch of gossiping old ladies that made up a story about Laufey being female and Loki her son and 'hey! Turns out that it was mostly true!'? For that matter, if Thor, Loki and Co. used to visit Earth, how did it take Loki around 1000 years to figure things out?
150** That part's a bit easier to account for, because the truth would be mixed in with all the other stuff and he wouldn't ''want'' to believe it. "Is my brother a redhead? Am I blood brothers with my father? Didn't think so."
151** Still, it was kinda weird how they predicted Loki's FaceHeelTurn.
152** That one's even easier to account for. Loki's still a trickster even when he's "good". (And he's obviously not ''that'' good since he was willing to let sworn enemies of his entire world into the heart of the city to humiliate his brother on his coronation day, which is a little bit more than a harmless prank.) He no doubt had quite a bit of "fun" with mortals when he visited Earth, so he and the others probably weren't exactly surprised when he wound up portrayed as more villainous than he was really supposed to be.
153** "Brother, why do the mortal myths keep turning me into a monster?" "Well, brother, I don't know how to tell you this, but you were kind of an asshole down there..."
154** Norse myth was primarily an oral tradition before the Prose and Poetic Eddas were collected. Loki swung wildly between being a good guy, an okay-but-kind-of-jerkish-guy, to an outright ass and back again many times through the various tellings and interpretations of the myths. Disentangling the various oral traditions is almost impossible, especially given the influence Christianity had on later tales. Related to that, a lot of the worst stories or versions of stories about Loki are more likely a result of Christian missionaries trying to literally demonize him, as in turn Loki into yet another Devil. Long answer short, the "original" myths that Loki may have heard from Scandinavians probably didn't portray him in as unflattering a light as the "modern" ones do.
155[[/folder]]
156
157[[folder:Symbols left by the Bifrost]]
158* What ''were'' those symbols that Coulson had someone from linguistics brought in to take a look at? Why did the Bifrost never create those symbols before?
159** Who says it didn't? Maybe it did and they were eroded away over time.
160** Jane was concerned that the wind and sand would bury them so it s seems likely they didn't last long.
161[[/folder]]
162
163[[folder:Hiding the adoption]]
164* The queen isn't pregnant and suddenly there's a baby they're saying is the new prince. Wouldn't there be at least rumors on Asgard that Loki wasn't Odin and Frigga's son?
165** Presumably Asgard sees a lot of usage of pregnancy-disguising illusion magic.
166*** This could be have been justified by saying that Frigga wanted to hide her pregnancy because she did not want to appear vulnerable during the war against Jotunheim.
167** Odin: "I declare that this boy is my son! None shall speak otherwise, on pain of death!" Or, alternately, Odin arrived home to find that his queen had ''just'' given birth to his own son, so he just claimed Thor and Loki were twins... I don't recall if there was anything to suggest an age gap between them that would make this impossible.
168*** This seems most likely, since in ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' Thor says that he and Loki were both eight when the snake prank happened. So either they were indeed raised as twins, or they are less than a year apart and Odin and Frigga perhaps made it look as if Loki was a premature baby and didn't let anyone see him until a certain age so that no one would see that he is actually older than claimed.
169*** [[WritersCannotDoMath Except]] the film states the battle against the Frost Giants was in 965 and in ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' Thor says he’s 1500 which means he’s a few centuries older than Loki (this then leads to a whole other set of confusion...).
170*** An explanation for this might be that Thor (and Loki too) is 1500 Asgardian years old, but only 1053 Earth years.
171** There were casualties on both sides during the war against the frost giants, which means there were probably also orphans left behind of both species. Odin doesn't have to mention that the orphaned baby boy he's adopting is a ''giant's'' child.
172** Perhaps Frigga recently suffered a late-term miscarriage.
173[[/folder]]
174
175[[folder:Dangers of leaving the Bifrost open]]
176* Having presumably been around for a while, and known to have gone on many an adventure, how did Volstagg never learn it was dangerous to leave the Bifrost open for extended periods of time until the film?
177** Because he's not in charge of it and has never left it open for extended periods of time, maybe? You use your car every day, do you know everything about how its engine works?
178** Perhaps not, but I've left the engine running while I stepped out for a couple seconds. I'd just think that kind of situation would come up at some point in his centuries of life, is all.
179** No reason it would have, necessarily. If they were always going to a less desolate place for more stand-up encounters, he may have just never had a reason to ask for the Bifrost to be left open.
180[[/folder]]
181
182[[folder:Norse Mythology in the MCU Part 2]]
183* Anyone know if there's any supplementary material or WordOfGod regarding whether or how Norse Mythology is different in the MCU than it is in RealLife? All we know from the films is that, in Marvel's Norse Mythology, the Tesseract does appear in some myth or other -- because otherwise, how would the Red Skull know it was Odin's prized treasure? And we know that the appearance of the Gods was apparently well recorded here, since their outfits appear the same in that children's book as they do in person. So when young Bruce Banner read about Norse mythology, was he reading completely different stories than the ones we know?
184** If I recall, the drawings in that book had different looks for the Asgardians. I seem to recall Thor being redheaded (as he is in the original myths) in the picture and the Bifrost looking more like a rainbow as opposed to the Star Trek-like beam canon in the film. Otherwise, yeah, it seems the Tesseract is a part of Nordic mythology in the MCU as Red Skull and Nick Fury both mention it belonged to history. The monks at the beginning of Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger were also aware of this.
185[[/folder]]
186
187[[folder:Women being warriors in Asgard]]
188* It is mentioned that Sif and Thor had to prove to Asgard that a woman could be a warrior. Okay, we could ignore viking culture and Nordic myth for a moment and believe that the MCU version of Asgardians would not allow women in battle before Sif came along. The problem is, Frigga shows that she is a capable warrior in both films and she is far older than Sif. Wouldn't they be aware of female warriors based on the fact that the queen can kick ass herself?
189** Sif still appears to be the only woman who is openly on the front lines of battle -- while Frigga is certainly good as a fighter, the implication is that she wasn't a soldier the way Sif is.
190** After a bit of research, the idea that the ancient vikings had female warriors is a myth. Their roles were pretty much the same as in any other ancient European culture, particularly the part about staying at home while the men fought. Nordic myths actually reflected that. Sif was originally just a fertility goddess. Even the concept of the Valkyrie warrior women was largely misunderstood. They carried the souls of dead warriors to Valhalla but were not themselves warriors. So the film makers might have ShownTheirWork in this regard.
191** The idea of shield maidens was in part due to a particular case in a Scandinavian coastal village where all of them men had left to fight, and the town was attacked. The women let their enemies in, offered them their hospitality, got them completely drunk and proceeded to slaughter them with anything they could find- which, incidentally, impressed their ruler of his realm equal rights in inheriting property and the like. So maybe an Asgardian woman would be trained to fight well enough to defend herself in the case of invasion while all the warriors are on the front lines (though perhaps it had fallen mostly out of fashion, considering how militarily superior Asgard seems to consider itself) but not to fight a war itself.
192** More recent research shows that at least one prominent Viking warrior tomb contained a woman's body (and indicates she held some kind of leader rank), so maybe Asgard and Norse culture just differed on this detail. [[WildMassGuessing Maybe the loss of the Valkyries we learn of in Thor Ragnarok was a significant enough cultural trauma that the Asgardians decided it wasn't a good idea?]]
193** Thor Ragnarok mentioned the Valkyries, an all-female force of soldiers, who were completely annihilated by Hela. It may be the fallout of that incident that discouraged more female fighters.
194[[/folder]]
195
196[[folder:Why stop Loki's plan?]]
197* Okay, Loki was a tremendous dick, that goes without saying... but exactly how was destroying Jotunheim a bad thing?
198** Not all of the Frost Giants were evil. Genocide isn't very nice.
199** Personally I think they should have made that a lot more clearer. Every Frost Giant we meet is either evil or at least a physical threat to the protagonists. They should have specified that these are just the Frost Giant warriors, and there's millions of Frost Giant civilians out there who don't deserve to die. Then we'd have a clear moral reason for not destroying Jotunheim.
200** Yes, but the audience shouldn't really be assuming in the first place that the whole planet's population is AlwaysChaoticEvil just because they've seen a few dozen of them. Although [[HumansAreBastards they are going to do so anyway]], I suppose...
201** Well, the leader of the Jotuns is introduced in the present by...giving Thor and his buddies the chance to leave peacefully, and clearly has no interest in reigniting their ancient war. That's clearly not AlwaysChaoticEvil, especially coming from their leader.
202** Why did he hate them so much anyhow? He is a Frost Giant by birth, and deems himself to be TheUnfavourite because of his heritage. After killing Laufey, he could have assumed leadership of both Asgard and Jotunheim - and, judging by Odin's speech, ''that'' is would have made him really proud of Loki. In addition, that gambit would have been worthy of [[ComicBook/{{Watchmen}} Ozymandias]].
203** Dunno, if I was a Frost Giant, and all of sudden Loki appeared saying "GUYS I SLEW YOUR KING BUT DON'T WORRY I AM HIS SON YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF, BOW TO ME PLZ?", I wouldn't be exactly welcoming of that idea, and probably would chalk it off as Asgardian witchery. I am not even sure if Laufey himself was aware Loki was his son.
204** Loki was raised as an Asgardian. You don't spend thousands of years growing up in a culture that favors protection of other realms and teaches of the atrocities of a species without retaining those predilections. Loki may have been shocked to learn he was a frost giant, but that's not going to change the education and culture he's been born to. He's still going to want to wallop frost giants, even if that does add some angst to it all when he knows he's part of that species.
205** They weren't terribly evil. Their king tried to do the reasonable thing and just let Thor and the warriors return to Asgard, but Thor took a random guard's bait and proceeded to massacre their troops, after which the king reacted the same way Odin and particularly Thor himself would have reacted (Thor wanted to declare war after a minor incursion in which ''nobody'' died except the Frost Giant spies themselves and a couple of {{Redshirt}} guards - imagine what he'd have done if the Frost Giants had charged up to the throne of Asgard, insulted Odin to his face and then slaughtered half the assembly because one of the guards muttered an insult). The Frost Giants did attack Asgard twice, but in both cases it was Loki who actually initiated things; without him stirring things up, they seemed to have been honoring the truce.
206** I just assumed that Frost Giant culture encourages KlingonPromotion.
207** I never got the impression that Loki would have ''wanted'' to be King of the Frost Giants. He doesn't seem to have any desire to connect with his true heritage- quite the opposite, in fact. He wants to be honored ''as an Asgardian'', and he intended to ensure that by saving Odin (albeit from a danger he put him in in the first place) and wiping out Jotunheim.
208** In response to the question, there's probably a delicate balance to Yggdrasil that destroying Jotunheim would upset. In general, this actually made me scratch my head as Loki in the comics embraces his Jotun heritage, leading them into battle, rather than trying to destroy them.
209** Well, now that Jotunheim is leaderless and Loki is exiled, he'd probably try to take over.
210** Granted, it'd be tough since Frost Giants probably wouldn't trust an 'Asgardian'. But hey, he's Loki, if he can't do it no one can. Just show off some blue skin.
211** Usually in Marvel once Laufey dies, doesn't the EvilSorcerer Utgard-Loki try to become King? (No relation)
212** Just turning into his Frost Giant form probably wouldn't cut it- they'd likely just assume it was Odin's shapeshifting trickster son who already got their king killed trying to pull a fast one on them (and largely, they'd be right). But still, he ''is'' [[ManipulativeBastard Loki]], and I've no doubt he could at least convince some of the more mercenary giants to work for him, given time.
213** When Loki finds out about his Frost Giant heritage, Odin also mentions that Loki was abandoned, possibly for being "small for a Frost Giant baby." Indicating that in addition to his feelings of inferiority to Thor, he may also have abandonment issues with the Frost Giants as a whole, which could explain why he decides to wipe them all out.
214** I agree with the comment above about the delicate balance to Yggdrasil, with an addition: when they cut to Earth, you could see ominous clouds with rainbow flickering. Loki trying to destroy Jotunheim was screwing with '''everything''', all of the worlds that were connected. Another way of putting it: start chopping off the roots of a tree (which Yggdrasil ''is'' in the mythology), and the tree doesn't do so well.
215** Even if the Jotuns were AlwaysChaoticEvil I think the point to not wanting their world destroyed was mostly that the heroic Asgardians are too morally upright to consider that anything but a terrible, terrible thing to do. Not just because it might upset some balance, but because as said, Genocide Is Bad. Even Thor at the height of his Jotun-hating battle lust never seems to consider that a possibility... he'll gladly fight their warriors in open combat, but wiping them all out from afar doesn't cross his mind because it's dishonorable and monstrous. The fact that Loki wants to do so pretty much shows how far he's fallen.
216** Also, who's to say that frost giants are the only intelligent beings in Jotunheim? There could be any number of other beings there - inoffensive vassals of the frost giants, or inhabitants of regions unsuited for the giants to live in - that we never see, that'd be caught in the crossfire of a large-scale war.
217* Considering Thor's goals were to find out what the Jotnar's motives were and them beat the fear of his hammer into them so they would not do it again while Odin's was to keep peace it could simply be that Aesir culture does not tolerate excessive murder. It is a warrior culture but one that seems content to simply defeat enemies, not annihilate them.
218[[/folder]]
219
220[[folder:Meaning of Loki's plan]]
221* Spinning out of Loki's destruction of Jotunheim, what exactly does he think he'll accomplish? Assuming he genuinely wants Odin's approval, how does he plan to get it by destroying the very people Odin spends the entire movie telling his sons to leave alone?
222** I think, at least on a subconscious level, Loki was wanted to destroy the Frost Giants because he hated the fact that he ''was'' one. Sort of an outwardly-directed suicide. "If I get rid of the Frost Giants, then I can't really be one."
223** Asgard and Jotun were also about to fight a war at the time. Loki wanted to make himself the savior of Asgard by destroying Jotun.
224** Yeah. Odin tells his sons to leave them alone because they'll start a war and war is terrible -- but the war was about to be started anyway thanks to Thor. I think Loki figured that Odin would draw a distinction between 'attacking them in peacetime' and 'attacking them as supposed self defense'.
225** I don't think Loki saw himself as a Frost Giant, even after the revelation: he'd had a lifetime of being raised with pride in Asgard and hatred for Jotunheim, and a few days of knowing that he's an adopted Frost Giant. If anything, finding out his origin just kicked Loki's WellDoneSonGuy issues into even more intense overdrive and he hated the Frost Giants even more now, because he sees his own heritage as the reason Thor's always been the favored son. He thought that destroying Jotunheim would prove to everyone, especially Odin, that he's really loyal to Asgard after all.
226** Remember that Loki let Laufey in to kill Odin, but killed Laufey before it could be done. Odin knows whats going on around him as he sleeps, he knew that Laufey was there to kill him. The destruction of Jotunheim was going to be Loki avenging the attempted assassination of his father.
227** It's all an IndyPloy by someone particularly callous... which makes perfect sense for the character, really. Loki lets the frost giants into Asgard just for "a bit of fun". He takes the opportunity to manipulate Thor into doing something stupid and dangerous. Thor's banishment is a bigger result than Loki would have hoped for. But then in the process Loki learns serendipitously that he's a frost giant himself. This AwfulTruth [[LockedOutOfTheLoop pisses him off]] and makes him a BoomerangBigot, more hateful to the frost giants than Thor himself was in the first place. Over the course of the movie Loki's CharacterDevelopment changes him from just another JerkassGod, and a relatively benign one at that, to an OmnicidalManiac.
228** Also, Loki probably agreed at least on some level with Thor: That Odin really ''wanted'' and maybe even ''should have wanted'' for his sons what made him a hero: An epic clash with the enemy, but Odin had grown old and weak. But if he saw that his sons could be just as tough as he was, he'd ''have'' to acknowledge their awesomeness and worthiness to be king. Particularly whichever son was the one to defeat them. And if they had attempted an assassination of Odin, then going to war with them would just be The Right Thing To Do.
229[[/folder]]
230
231[[folder:Illusionary powers of Frost Giants?]]
232* Loki is a Frost Giant, albeit a small one. Do other Frost Giants have powers of shape-shifting, mirror images and cloaking? If no, why does Loki?
233** He learned from the Asgardians
234** ^Exactly. In another scene one of the Warriors Three mentions that Loki is "skilled in magic". His shape-shifting, holo-clones, and cloaking are learned skills, not inborn abilities.
235** In the flashback, we see Loki first transform as a baby while being held by Odin -- presumably, Odin either activated latent shape-shifting powers in Loki, or gave them to him right then and there. As for the other giants, might depend on whether they can do magic or not, or a similar factor.
236** If it was Loki doing that -- and I personally think it was -- it could also be construed as him instinctively taking the form most pleasing to the person holding him. Which, when you get right down to it, is the core element of Loki's personality in the film, and his relationship with Odin.
237** The sequel mentions Loki learning magic from Frigga, so it appears the shapeshifting was Odin's doing.
238[[/folder]]
239
240[[folder:Odin's plans with Loki]]
241* What the heck was Odin's plans for a 'permanent peace' with the Frost Giants that led him to adopt Loki? It's not like Loki was a hostage for Laufey's good behavior, since he seemed to have been abandoned (perhaps exposed?) infant that Laufey didn't care about.
242** Perhaps he intended to wait for Laufey to die naturally (Asgardians age, so presumably Jotuns do as well), then have Loki reveal himself and claim the throne, resulting in Jotunheim having a monarch who was, obviously, friendly to Asgard. He ''also'' probably intended to tell Loki about his true identity well before this actually happened to prepare him for it; him finding out prematurely didn't do anyone any good.
243** I figured he'd planned to use Loki as a sort of symbol. Along the lines of, "One of you, Laufey's own son in fact, lives among us as an equal. Ergo, our peoples can coexist peacefully."
244** Yeah. Sort of a big anti-racism statement.
245** It's possible that Odin initially took in Loki for that purpose, but quickly decided "Well, the poor kid's already been abandoned, it's probably kinder to raise him as my own instead of forcing him to be a spectacle".
246** This theory also explains his "You're my son, I want to protect you" line really well. Odin also said that his plans to somehow have Loki help with/be part of a peace accord "no longer matter." Clearly he doesn't have anything planned for Loki like that anymore.
247** Well, the impending war may have screwed that more than anything.
248** I read it as Odin could have been planning to marry Loki into Asgardian nobility -- the way royal families have been doing for ages. Of course, that has the same issues as the hostage thing. "Hey, remember that baby you left to die forever ago? Yeah, I totally saved that baby, and brought him to Asgard, and now he's married to one of our nobles. We're cool, right?" I like the idea that Odin abandoned whatever plans he had for him a long time ago, as suggested above, a lot better.
249** It's clear Odin wished for Loki to bring peace between Jotunheim and Asgard. Perhaps at the time he wanted Loki to be a symbol that the two could coexist peacefully but over time came to love the child as his own son and abandoned 'spectacle' plans. He still could have wanted Loki to grow up to be Asgard's ambassador to Jotunheim; you'll notice that Loki is clearly [[TheFace the diplomatic one in Thor's group]] but Laufey made clear to Odin that Thor's rampage pushed them 'beyond diplomacy' which trashed this {{plan}}.
250[[/folder]]
251
252[[folder:Using Mjolnir as a tool to repair]]
253* Odin says that Mjolnir can be used for both destruction and construction. Why didn't Thor use it to rebuild the New Mexico town before returning to Asgard to kick Loki's ass? After all, Thor's presence was the reason why the Destroyer trashed the town, and using Mjolnir's powers to restore it would have been a nice touch in his CharacterDevelopment.
254** Why didn't he use it to rebuild Bifrost?
255** Loki was in the process of completing his plan right then, if Thor had waited much longer he would have destroyed Jotunheim before Thor even returned to Asgard.
256** I think Odin was being a bit poetical in his speech, as in, you could use Mjolnir to destroy or build empires and such, not literally use it to physically build stuff (well, you COULD use it to do some carpentry, I guess...)
257** Thor fully intended on coming back once he'd stopped Loki, who's to say he wouldn't have helped rebuild on his return? He knew whatever Loki was up to had to be stopped immediately, so he had to dash straight back to Asgard to stop him. He had no way of knowing he would have to destroy the Bifrost to stop Loki's plan.
258[[/folder]]
259
260[[folder:Thor vs. Taser]]
261* How was Thor brought down so easily by a taser? I know he is BroughtDownToNormal but he also showed rather quick recovery from 2 car collisions and beat up all those SHIELD agents without much problem.
262** The times he was hit by the car were instances of the car backing up slightly or coming to a full stop. They were never full-on hits. Also, having the skills to beat up government agents doesn't mean you can't get tazed or drugged. He was strong but he never appeared super human.
263** The first hit was not by a car coming to a full stop, although it was probably not head-on either (I think they swerved a bit to the side). Then after they hit him, they came to a full stop. They were driving a large vehicle and driving very quickly to chase the storm, so the impact should still have been considerable, right? I'm just bringing up this point because it does seem as if his resilience, though diminished, is still incredibly high.
264** It is worth noting that tasers don't work by taking off hit points, they work by issuing a status effect. In other words, they don't so much hit you as hack into your nervous system and pump it full of high-intensity gibberish, making your whole body go FAWHFJAEJKL:ASLAWRA.
265** Plus, he had ''just'' been BroughtDownToNormal. Like, thirty seconds ago. He was having trouble standing before he got tased.
266** Yup, the order goes 'fall to earth, get hit by a van, get tazed'. I'm assuming the damage stacked. Also, I figured he could take out the SHIELD guys because, even when he's super-powered, he still fights some strong foes. It's a down-scaling of his skills to be fighting regular humans, but it's probably not that much different from fighting Frost Giants or other Asgardians when he's at normal capacity.
267** It's evident when he's fighting the big ScaryBlackMan; strong as he is being mortal, this particular GiantMook gives him a good run.
268** I've no experience with falling to Earth from Asgard, but I have been hit by a decelerating car ''and'' tazed, so I can tell you that the latter is far more difficult to resist. The main danger in the former (since the car ''is'' slowing to a stop'') is hitting your head when you fall down, which would not be a problem with desert sands. I've never yet met anyone who can resist electricity being blasted through their body. With regards to the SHIELD agents: even without powers, Thor is still a very large man with plenty of combat experience. He may very well have been fighting hand-to-hand even before said agents were born, so why shouldn't he be able to blow through them?
269** Or more simply -- "Where did you get your training? Afghanistan? Iraq" "ASGARD, MOTHER-LOVER!"
270** A taser works by pumping electricity into you causing your muscles to spasm out due to the high voltage. Muscles move because your brain sends an electrical current to them. Tasers override that current with a much more powerful and random one. It doesn't matter how strong you are.
271[[/folder]]
272
273[[folder:No precautions for the Odinsleep?]]
274* I'm not sure if this borders on PlotHole or not. But the whole impetus for Loki seizing power is Odin entering the Odinsleep. For those who don't know, in the comics The Odinsleep is a state of deep sleep where Odin essentially recharges his batteries, it's said explicitly by Loki when he and his mother speak at Odin's bedside that that's what he is doing. Okay. This wasn't the first Odinsleep by any stretch, nor the first one experienced by Loki or Asgard. Okay. So certainly there are plans in place for just who should command Asgard while Odin takes the Odinsleep, and given what he says to Thor about not being ready to be king, it seems to be that the task didn't simply fall to Odin's sons. Odin didn't think either of them were ready to rule. So logic tells us there must have been someone else watching over Asgard while Odin sleeps. If nothing else, Asgardian Law should provide for this while Odin takes a simple nap. So how come Loki becomes king at all? The Odinsleep was nothing new, it had been done before, and Odin didn't want his sons having that power... so why does he become king when Odin is not sick, not wounded, and actually not in danger of dying... or in fact is not doing anything out of the ordinary?
275** Odin was sick and they were unsure if he was going to wake up. I think that is the difference. Several scenes from the trailers detailing Loki's ascension to power were cut from the actual film. A more detailed description of the Odinsleep was also lacking such as normal length. My guess would be normally the Odinsleep is so short (maybe a day or so like in the comics) that Frigga or the normal Asgardian bureaucracy could take care of things while Odin slept. This time around Odin was in a coma and they were unsure when or if he would ever wake up. Asgard was on the brink of war and their greatest warrior was banished. Morale would be pretty low. Since the role of king is highly symbolic as well a new king had to be crowned to deal with everything. It's saying: "Look, don't worry. We have a son of Odin leading us in this time of crisis" rather than just a regent or some bureaucrat who does not know how to truly rule.
276** The Odinsleep in general is no big deal, this particular one was unplanned, and much more severe, as evidenced by dialogue. It seems likely that Odin knows when he'll need to Odinsleep soon, and so makes preparations to be away for a little bit. This time, the stress of banishing Thor and having Loki learn his heritage, and throw it in Odin's face rather aggressively, triggered a premature and far deeper Odinsleep than usual, leaving Asgard in crisis. Add to that the potential impending war with Jotunheim, and it's no surprise the Asgardians would fall in line behind the only prince they had.
277[[/folder]]
278
279[[folder:Norse Mythology in the MCU Part 3]]
280* The movie begins with Odin telling juvenile Thor and Loki the history of Asgard, including the withdrawal of the Asgardians from Earth. So, if Thor and Loki were just kids long after that withdrawal, how does Earth have legends of Mighty Warrior Thor and Evil Scheming Loki? Loki doesn't even turn into a bad seed until half way through the film! The ancient Norse were ''psychic''!
281** Well, note that Loki wasn't really evil and scheming (mostly just a bit of a practical joker) until the monks copying down the legends decided to turn him into Lucifer. He was more of a KarmicTrickster and paired up with Thor for a BrainsAndBrawn deal.
282** Which is basically what he is thought of in Asgard (note how everybody talks about his "silver tongue" and his "tricks"), until Thor is banished and Loki goes full-on heel. FridgeBrilliance?
283** This may be, as noted elsewhere, {{Foreshadowing}} of the fact that the gods are trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth by Ragnarok, with the myths referring to the previous cycle, in which case the characters will notice the discrepancy in one of the later Thor movies and it'll be a major plot point.
284** Alternatively, also as noted elsewhere, the kids were named after a great warrior and a great trickster, whose identities were confused in the myths with the newborn heirs, and who the heirs tried to live up to.
285** Didn't Fandral mention Thor and the others visiting Earth occasionally to show off their power.
286** We don't know how much time passed between the war with the Frost Giants and the present-day events the movie. It's entirely possible it's been thousands upon thousands of years and the Asgardians/Jotun just age really slowly compared to humans. One of the Warriors Three mentions something about dropping in on Earth and being worshiped as a god. Maybe that's what Thor and the other Asgardians did during the intervening millennia.
287** It was more than 1000 years since the Asgardians defeated the Frost Giants if Odin's eye is any indication. The opening fight is set around 900 A.D., during which Laufey shoots Odin in the eye with that spiky ice ball. The fight ends in Jotunheim with Odin standing over the defeated Laufey with a bloody hole where his eye used to be. Unless Odin left that wound to fester for years, the war must have lasted hours at best. Odin found baby Loki around the same time, meaning that both he and Thor are more than 1000 years old because Thor is the older brother.
288[[/folder]]
289
290[[folder:Why is Loki wearing a suit?]]
291* Minor headscratcher: Loki wearing a suit on earth. Yes, he looks gorgeous. And yes, I fully approve. I just don't get ''why'' though. Nobody in the entire base can see him unless he wants them to! I mean, he managed to walk all the way up the hammer and grab it without a single SHIELD personnel questioning him. He could have just been in his normal horned armor and it would have been fine.
292** Maybe he just likes a good suit. Lots of people do. Impractical for warfare and inappropriate for the King of Asgard, but when in Rome...
293** The dude's desperate to fit in and look good no matter where he is.
294** The RealLife reason is probably because he might look a little silly in full Asgardian regalia on Earth. The in-story reason could be just in case he needed to make himself visible or if the invisible spell wore off somehow.
295** It might also be something like the "Somebody Else's Problem" field in ''Literature/LifeTheUniverseAndEverything''. Loki isn't fully invisible so much as his magic's keeping people from noticing him, and the modern suit's part of the effect. If he'd shown up looking like a Norse god, it may have broken the spell.
296** Although that is exactly how the SEP field works: The more ridiculous and out of place something looks, the more people will ignore it.
297** No, that's how one specific SEP field works. The ''concept'' of "Somebody Else's Problem", which has been used in numerous other places, makes no such distinction. Loki may be using a version that basically says "Don't mind me, just another guy in a nice suit."
298** He is a shapeshifter maybe he's able to change his clothes like he can with the rest of him
299** When he appeared in Thor's room he essentially took the place of Coulson; perhaps the spell that allowed him to appear so unobtrusively also attempts to match his outfit to the previous occupant of the space.
300** It may have been a subtle nod to the audience that Loki has visited Earth before, which ties in well with TheStinger. It could also be Loki's method of shielding himself from Heimdall involves blending in with his environment, which he would probably need to do in order to visit Thor on Earth.
301** Simple. Loki isn't invisible, he's just encouraging people not to notice him. The clothes are possibly a crutch for himself, not others; as with any lie, if you're too conscious of its falsity, you can't convince anyone else of it, either. (And considering that he now questions his belonging anywhere at all, he may need the crutch.)
302** Also, Loki possibly figured he might need to talk to someone along the way, to ask for information or directions. Easier to do that if he's not wearing clothes that scream "Weirdo Cosplaying Intruder!" at the time.
303[[/folder]]
304
305[[folder:Loki using the casket as a weapon]]
306* Why didn't Loki use the Casket on Thor during their final fight? It had to be powerful enough to freeze Heimdall, so why not use its power on Thor?
307** Because he was using it to keep Bifrost frozen.
308** Yep. You can see the glowing blue outline of the Casket sitting where Heimdall's sword would normally be after the energy beam hits Jotunheim. Loki waves his hand, activating the Casket, then the Bifrost energy matrix starts freezing.
309[[/folder]]
310
311[[folder:Can only Jotuns pick up the casket?]]
312* Loki picking up the Casket the first time: is the big deal is that only a Frost Giant can pick up the box? If so, who picked it up at the temple? In the flashback/backstory scene, it sure looks like someone is already wearing Loki's fabulous helmet. Is this [=PreviousIncarnation=]!Loki?
313** I'm pretty sure anyone can pick up the Casket. The big deal was the cold from the Casket (or maybe just touching such a powerful piece of Frost Giant magic, or maybe both), caused Loki's true Frost Giant form to be revealed.
314** Yeah, they could have made it a little more obvious but when Loki touches the Casket you can see his skin starting to turn back to its natural blue.
315** About the helmet: That was an Einherjar, and their helmets do have horns, although they aren't bent back like Loki's.
316[[/folder]]
317
318[[folder:Loki's hair colour]]
319* So, Loki is a Frost Giant, right? Naturally blue and all that? Odin "glamoured" him as a baby, presumably so that he'd fit in with the other Asgardians, not feel isolated, etc. So why is it that he gave the poor kid black hair? His brother, and pretty much all of Asgard are total blondies. Kinda mean, Odin...
320** Sif is a brunette, so obviously not all Asgardians are naturally blonde.
321** Sif was born blonde. It was kind of her thing, actually. Loki cut it all off and replaced if with black hair as a prank.
322** First, this isn't confirmed as canon in the Marvel-verse so it means nothing. Second, that is completely incorrect; In the myth, after Loki cuts off Sif's hair, he is forced by Thor to fix it. The wig he obtains for Sif is described as woven gold. She was never a brunette in the myths, real hair or not.
323** ...Which is irrelevant since we don't even know if that incident occurred in the movieverse. The fact is there are examples of non-blonde Asgardians. Sif is one, Volstagg is another. Technically Heimdall would also count. Asgard is not the Aryan wasteland you imagine it to be.
324** OP has a point, but in a different way. Odin, Frigga, and Thor are blonds. Loki has black hair. Surely, the Asgardians would have noticed that the younger prince didn't really resemble his relatives.
325** To be fair, although Thor seems to be Odin and Frigga's child, in the original myths, it was Odin and a giantess named Fjorgyn who were his parents. He might not have been in Zeus' league, but Odin got around.
326** There's a shooting script floating around on the internet, where Loki addresses Laufey as "father", and Laufey recalls him as "the bastard". So Loki is probably only half-Jotun, or half-giant, and with his magical talent, he might have changed his appearance subconsciously.
327** In the mythology Loki is half-giant, half-alfa (elf). Whether it's the same in the movies or not idk.
328** I assumed that Loki's unusual coloring was just because a glamor can only go so far. Loci looked frost-giantish when he came into contact with the casket or another frost giant, which implies that whatever spell Odin put on him isn't perfect. Odin was able to make Loki look (for lack of a better word) human, but was unable to make him look truly Asgardian. And as for the lack of family resemblance, Odin is the king. You don't question what the king says.
329** The glamour may not be Odin's doing anyway. Loki might be a natural shapeshifter, and his Asgardian form is equally 'true'.
330** Mythologically speaking, at least, there's no 'might.' Loki IS a shapeshifter. He can even [[StealthPun do horses.]]
331[[/folder]]
332
333[[folder:Did Thor know of the adoption?]]
334* Loki tells Thor that he, Loki, was never Thor's brother. Thor doesn't seem at all confused by this comment. Does that mean that Thor knew that Loki was adopted? Does Thor know that Loki is a Frost Giant?
335** Thor may have taken it more like Loki was saying he hated Thor so much that he wanted no relation to him (a fairly common thing to say in the heat of an argument among family), rather than the literal meaning of the statement.
336** He does reply with "Loki, this is madness!", so he may have simply counted the "not your brother" statement along with the "I'm going to wipe out Jotunheim and fight you at the same time" stuff. It's easy to think he was simply overwhelmed at how quickly things have changed.
337** Total theorizing, but people like Loki are sometimes prone to being massive drama llamas, and they'll flip their spit and go completely wacko, saying and doing things they ordinarily wouldn't because they're riding the Rage Train and it doesn't have any stops between Sane and OMG EVERYONE JUST DIE IN A FIRE. If this is true of Loki, Thor's probably used to hearing Loki say all kinds of crazy things.
338[[/folder]]
339
340[[folder:Thor taking so long to get to the Bifrost]]
341* When Thor is shot through the wall by Loki, he obviously manages to change his fall into flight with his hammer and makes his way to the Bifrost. Yet somehow Loki ''still'' arrives there before Thor, with enough time to open the Bifrost and freeze it... while traveling on horseback? And no, he wasn't even riding Sleipnir -- he's just riding a normal, four legged horse.
342** One explanation could be that Thor was knocked unconscious (by Gungnir or by the fall) and it took Thor awhile to wake up and catch up to his brother.
343** Or he went back to make sure Loki didn't hurt Odin and Frigga.
344[[/folder]]
345
346[[folder:Thor escaping from the hospital]]
347* How did Thor escape from his restraints at the hospital? He didn't muscle out of the first one, he just sort of slithered his wrist through it. Do Asgardians have deflatable bones or something?
348** Rule # 1 of SERE training (Survive Evade Resist Escape; essentially military training to evade and escape capture) is that all restraints can be broken or escaped given time and effort. Thor simply worked the restraints until he could get one hand free.
349** Basically, the restraints were meant to hold someone who was thrashing around all crazy-like, which Thor had been up to that point. Those sort of restraints on hospital beds are to keep an irrational patient from harming themselves or others, not to actually keep someone bolted securely to the bed... if they'd wanted to do that, they'd have handcuffed him. Once Thor calmed down and used his brain, he was able to get out of them, because they weren't made to hold someone who was calm and thinking clearly.
350[[/folder]]
351
352[[folder:Loki trying to kill Thor]]
353* I don't quite understand Loki's sudden evilness. Everything he did, including his visiting Thor on Midgard, made perfect sense to me and while it wasn't all "nice", it definitely wasn't "evil" either. Then all of a sudden he wants to kill Thor. WTF?!
354** He only sends the Destroyer after him, if I recall correctly, after the Warriors Three and Sif go to find him, and they're going to find him explicitly so he'll help them depose Loki. Of them all, Thor is the only one who's truly a threat to his plans, particularly if and when they expose as a lie Loki's insistence that Odin was dead. That, and jealousy probably had a hand in it.
355** But becoming king wasn't really on Loki's agenda, or was it?
356** I don't believe so. But I also think that once he'd tasted power, Loki found himself unwilling to give it up. He also already had his plans in motion for winning Odin's blessing by destroying the Jotuns and he sure as Hel wasn't going to let ''anyone'' mess that up.
357** Well, Loki would have given power back to Odin, once he woke up, otherwise his "rescue plan" would have been pretty pointless. Also, if Thor returned without his powers, I doubt the Asgardians would just have made him king.
358** Loki wasn't going to just sit back and trust his lucky stars that Thor would never get his powers back.
359** Also, from Loki's perspective, if he successfully carries out his plan and destroys the Jotuns, then he's cemented himself as Odin's heir. He doesn't need to give up his throne forever -- after all, Odin was ready to crown Thor, which says that he's ready or almost ready to step down himself. If Thor comes back, it screws ''everything'' up.
360** But even ''if'' Thor got his powers back without Loki's interaction - Loki was already in control of the Bifröst. Thor had no way coming back to Asgard unless Loki wanted him to.
361** Or if Heimdall turned on him- which Loki obviously believed was a possibility, since he went out of his way to ''freeze the guy solid''! Besides, smart as he is, is Loki ''really'' operating rationally on the subject of his family? I don't really think so...
362** Loki was just doing what he does best; making mischief, i.e., [[ManipulativeBastard manipulating]] everyone around him. He deliberately gave the Frost Giants a way into Asgard, which he knew would end up screwing both them and Thor, he planted the idea of blowing off Odin's orders into Thor's head, before informing on their effort to some guard anyway. The whole Thor getting banished thing was just an unexpected consequence -- even Loki seems a bit shocked when it happens. That, and the whole "You're a Frost Giant" bomb which Odin drops later probably compelled him to go with the whole "I'll wipe them out!!!11!" idea. And for the record, Loki only visited Thor so that he could screw with him, which is why he lied about Odin being dead.
363** Being a king always seemed to be on Loki's agenda. So, as the previous poster said, he interrupted Thor's coronation with the Frost Giant attack, then convinced Thor to defy Odin and attack the giants, then after Thor was exiled he visited Thor and lied to him in hopes it'd keep Thor from ever returning.
364** Loki's plans change at different points throughout the movie. Initially his intentions seem to be more mischievous than malicious: he is concerned that Thor is not fit to be king (a legitimate concern), so he hatches a plan that, depending on whether or not Loki expected a sentence of banishment, would result in either Thor learning a lesson or the coronation being delayed so that Loki can continue to try to convince Odin that Thor is not worthy. Dick move? Yeah, but not necessarily malicious. The turning point comes when Loki discovers that he's a Frost Giant and that Odin had been lying to him his entire life. All sorts of deep-seated issues from his sibling rivalry to racial self-loathing start bubbling up and he has a bit of a break. Loki's outlook on his situation takes a 180: the problem is no longer that Asgard needs a proper king, the problem is that Odin thinks Loki is not worthy! Phase 2 v 2.0 of Loki's "Plan": He needs to prove that he is A. Not a monster and B. He is more worthy than Thor. From there it really spirals out of control, on account of Loki's inability to communicate or do anything without the use of trickery like a normal person (as exhibited in Phase 1 v 1 of the "Plan.")
365[[/folder]]
366
367[[folder:Asgardians getting burned by Jotuns]]
368* If Asgardians can't touch Jotuns without being burned, why was Odin able to pick up baby Loki without any ill effects?
369** As the most powerful of the Asgardians Odin may be more resistant to the Jotun freezer-burn effect. And baby Jotuns are surely far less powerful than full-grown ones. Perhaps their freezer-burn powers take time to mature.
370** It may also be a voluntary effect. Note that Laufey opens the comatose Odin's eyes without adverse effects.
371[[/folder]]
372
373[[folder:Loki changing form as a baby]]
374* In ''Thor'', there is a flashback of Odin finding baby Loki, and the kid changes appearance from a squalling blue infant to a calmer pink infant. Was this an early manifestation of Loki's sorcerous abilities, a subconscious self-defense mechanism to help him stay safe, or just something that the Jotun all know how to do? And was it an actual change or an illusion?
375** Most people I've talked to assume Odin was the one who changed him, to help disguise him.
376[[/folder]]
377
378[[folder:Thor's age]]
379* How old exactly ''is'' Thor? He does not seem to [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld act his age]] at all. Loki says in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'' that humans ''think'' the Asgardians are immortal; but he then asks to test it (Implying it's either not true or maybe they honestly don't know if they're immortal or not). Odin speaks of his "father before him," implying that there ''have'' been previous generations of Asgardians that have come and gone; hence ''not'' immortal. Are they super long-lived (so much so Thor was old enough to fight during Viking times)? Does time pass differently in Asgard then it does in Midgard? Are there many generations of Odins and Thors and Lokis?
380** I had assumed that time passes in Asgard the same as it does in Midgard and Thor ''is'' approx. a thousand years old, with Loki slightly younger- but that both are still considered young man-equivalents by Asgardian standards (Odin, who looked middle-aged even during the Asgard-Jotunheim war, is probably several millennia old). Going by Norse mythology, the gods were incredibly long-lived (though they maintained their youth by eating magical golden apples) and hard to kill, but were ''not'' immortal, and I got the impression that this would also hold true for the movie's versions. So Thor ''is'' the equivalent of an impetuous young twenty-something, but because he comes from a ''very'' long lived race he's chronologically a lot older than that.
381** Using 965 A.D. as reference[[note]]The battle between the Jotuns and Asgardians is shown at the beginning of the film, with "965 A.D" onscreen. Odin lost his eye in the battle and it's still bleeding when he finds baby Loki.[[/note]], in 2013 Loki would be at least 1048 years old. Thor is presumably not much older than Loki, as their actors are nearly the same age.[[note]]Chris Hemsworth was 28 and Tom Hiddleston was 31 when filming. Dakota Goyo (young Thor) and Ted Allpress (young Loki) were both almost 12.[[/note]]
382** It's possible to calculate Asgardian mental maturity vs. physical age, based on evidence from the films. In ''The Dark World'', Loki implies that Asgardians live for about five thousand years or so. Taking average human life expectancy as about eighty years, and assuming that Asgardians mature mentally at a rate that's more or less proportional to their lifespan- like humans- 62.5 years for an Asgardian is equivalent to one year of human development. Assuming that Loki was born during or at the end of the war between Asgard and Jotunheim, dated at about 965 C.E., and that Thor is a few years/decades older, both of them come out at about only ''seventeen years old'' mentally. [[FridgeBrilliance Which actually explains a lot]].
383** [[VoodooShark That Just Raises Further Questions]] because references to Thor, Loki and Odin are ''much'' older than 965 AD. Unless Odin visited Earth before and was actually inspired by the myths, and named his kids after them. Or Norse Mythology is very different in the movie universe.
384** Most of what we know about the Norse gods comes from after the Viking Age. Containing the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetic_Edda Poetic Edda]], the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Regius Codex Regius]] is thought to have been written in 1270. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose_Edda Prose Edda]] was thought to have been written around 1220. That leaves at least a good 320 years between the Jotun-Asgardian war on Earth and the writing of the best known sources of the Norse myths. It's also worth noting that the Prose Edda is Icelandic, and the Jotun-Asgardian war is shown to take place in Iceland. And for what it's worth, ''Loki'' shows that there are definitely more incarnations of the gods.[[note]]I don't think it's canon to the main comics, but I could be wrong. Either way, it's definitely worth the read. A movie was made out of it, ''Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers'' which is also very good.[[/note]] Whether or not this is true for the films...
385** Yes, the Eddas are the ''primary'' sources of information on the Norse Myths, but far from the ''only'' ones. The poem ''Haustlöng'', which is the first confirmed mention of Loki (references to Thor are much older), was actually written circa 900AD... Finding this out, I think this could be possible FridgeBrilliance, since the filmmakers must have done some research and might have deliberately set the discovery of Loki at the exact time the first story about him was written... since that story is about Odin and Loki going on an adventure together, My WildMassGuessing would then be that Odin made the story up as a bedtime story for his brand new son about the adventures he would have, and some Norse poets overheard it. By the way my source on this is the [[http://www.norsemyth.org/ Norse Mythology Blog]] who also have an interesting article about Stan Lee and Jack Kirby having ShownTheirWork in the comics a lot more than people, even scholars give them credit for. Read it [[http://www.norsemyth.org/2011/09/blond-thor-stan-lee-wasnt-wrong.html here.]]
386[[/folder]]
387
388[[folder:Loki using the Bifrost when visiting Laufey]]
389* I guess this could be just Loki making a huge misstep, but why in the world does he use the Bifröst to visit Laufey? He's currently the king and only remaining heir of Asgard, visiting a highly dangerous location, so Heimdall has good reason to watch him like a hawk. Loki must have known that cloaking would make Heimdall very suspicious. Yet, we know he has other ways of communicating with the Frost Giants, because there's no way Heimdall would have let him to that strictly forbidden location before the first attack (that Loki orchestrated). He even talks about there being other pathways. So why didn't he use those? His plan became very compressed as soon as Heimdall mistrusted him, because that led to Heimdall letting Thor's friends through against the kings' orders. There was no way for Thor to get back (even if he did have his powers) without help from the Asgard side, so would it not be wise for Loki to ingratiate himself to the sole gatekeeper of that passageway, instead of making him suspicious and then insulting him afterwards? It seems a large contrast from the subtlety of Loki's influence up to that point.
390** Loki was declared king and I assume that most Asgardians don't question the decisions of their king. Besides, he is a talented liar. He could have said that he needed to go to Jotunheim for peace negotiations, because of the trouble that Thor had caused. On the other hand, I doubt that Heimdall would have bought that, as he never really fell for Loki's lies and that he always was suspicious of him. Also, showing up with a dozen of guards by Loki's side could've ticked Laufey off, thinking that Loki was launching an attack. He probably upped his defenses ever since Thor wrecked his kingdom. I think that Loki wanted to show that he wasn't a threat by coming alone. And about those secret passages: I think it would've been even more suspicious if he did use those to get to Jotunheim at the time and if he didn't tell anybody where he was. Like I said, Loki was the friggin' king. He was being watched all the time by his guards and had to run a kingdom. If he suddenly disappeared, everybody would freak out and that is the last thing that Loki wants. Maybe Heimdall wouldn't have bought it, but I think that his guards would've believed him when he would tell them that he needed to go to Jotunheim alone to negotiate with Laufey about a truce between the two realms.
391[[/folder]]
392
393[[folder:Is Loki half Jotun?]]
394* So is Loki even fully Jotun? Even in his blue form, he looks less like a big inhuman thing and more like... well, a blue version of his normal self with a couple face markings. (Or [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Data]].) Apparently in the deleted scene Laufey dismissively calls Loki his ''bastard'' son and indicates that he left him to die on purpose, so is his real mom an Asgardian or something?
395** Could be, but there are six other realms as well for his mother to come from.
396** Loki's comics backstory has him as a "runt" Frost Giant, and in the movieverse, Odin says that Loki as baby was small for even a foundling Frost Giant. That and his innate, perhaps subconsciously activated shape-shifting powers might explain why he doesn't look like a slightly icier version of a [[Film/{{Avatar}} Na'vi]]
397[[/folder]]
398
399[[folder:Odin's parental favoritism]]
400* Why did Odin favour Thor over Loki for the throne at the start? Loki takes after his father more than Thor does -- he's smart, cunning, far-sighted, and capable of diplomacy. Thor's popular with the Asgardians and fits well into their BoisterousBruiser culture, but a king needs to be more than that, and based on what we see, Loki at the start of the film is much closer to what you need in a ruler than Thor. Was it just that Thor was his biological child?
401** A couple of potential reasons: 1) Thor was older and so would be automatically in line for the throne (assuming Asgardian inheritance policy operated the same as ours); 2) when Odin tells Loki about finding him, he mentions that he had "a plan" to bring Jotunheim and Asgard together in some way and it's somewhat unlikely for that plan to have been to put Loki on the throne of Asgard; 3) in many ways, Thor seemed to actively ''want'' it more than Loki did. When the two are children, we see that Thor is much more enthusiastic about the possibility of being King while Loki seems somewhat resigned to the fact that things will end up that way. Odin may actually genuinely have believed he was giving each brother what they wanted by making Thor the new King instead of Loki.
402** Loki actually does mention in the climax that he never wanted the throne, and he seems quite genuine about it, it's only in Avengers onward that he seems to actively desire to be king of Asgard after having a taste of power and probably Thanos' influence, he was probably groomed by Odin to at the very least be a power behind Thor, remember, up until the film, Loki and Thor were very close as brothers, and Thor seemed to at least willing to hear Loki out when Loki said something, to the point that When Loki turned up with the new that Odin had passed, Thor ''instantly'' believed him, so it is probable that Loki would be the equivelent to a Grand Vizer in Thors' court, and had accepted that because his big brother was a natural fit for a king.
403[[/folder]]
404
405[[folder:Where was Balder?]]
406* Why the heck was Balder not in this movie? He's kind of a major character, and now it's going to be hard to justify having him in a sequel. Think about it: where is he in the first movie if he shows up in a sequel? What's he doing?
407** Asgard is a big place. There's plenty of room for a god who lives off on his own, or is off adventuring in one of the other realms. Particularly if you assume Baldur is part of the older generation of gods, of like age to Heimdall.
408** In the comics, Balder is Thor's half-brother and current King of Asgard. Which is why his absence in the movie is strange, giving his recent raise in importance. Then again, this is something recent, he was not know by anyone but Odin to be prince until a few years ago (in RealLife time, not ComicBookTime). He can appear in a future movie without and still be faithful to the comic without much of a hassle. He shouldn't be a old generation god, though.
409** Worth noting that just a few weeks before the movie was released, Balder was shuffled off to comic-book limbo in the monthly series. Additionally, rumor had it that the initial script treatment for the film had Balder getting killed in the pre-credits sequence. I suspect Balder won't be showing up in the Thor movie franchise. Between Thor, Sif, Heimdall, and Fandral he'd be somewhat redundant, and all of the sudden Thor having this other "best friend" that just sorta skipped all the drama of the last film would seem a bit jarring. I could be wrong though. It did seem to me that they sort of divided his character between Heimdall and Fandral.
410** I just assumed Balder was left out to make the "Father-Son-Brother" thing, a major part of the plot, a little simpler and neater.
411** Tyr was also left out, probably as he is also a son of Odin. That said most of Odin's boys were to different mothers. So they could be still out there in the court, not knowing they're royal bastards.
412* If you pause while Erik is flipping his Mythology book and peer closely at Loki's page, it says Loki already killed Balder, after being disgraced for his trickery and winning his way back in with his silver tongue. Which I'm not fond of because it makes Loki into a repeat offender instead of a man who had a psychotic break.
413** Either the myths are wrong or they're using the comics' explanation that Ragnarok is a cyclical event and the gods are reborn after their destruction. Therefore, a previous Loki killed Balder, and that's who the myths were about.
414** The myths could be both right and wrong; Balder's death could have been an accident in 'reality' in the MCU. The part about Loki's trickery could have been an attempt to hide his guilt even though Balder's death wasn't intentional.
415** Well, to put it bluntly, looking for an InUniverse explanation is probably redundant. The most likely reason for this is it's a pre-existing book or someone just copied/pasted Loki's Wikipedia page, printed it out, bound it and hey presto, movie prop ready to go! As you said, it's only visible if you pause and actually ''look'' at it; typically, movie makers don't really count on people doing that. In pretty much every movie involving people reading things, there'll be a mistake somewhere in what they're reading because it often just has to "fill up the page", as it were. The content itself isn't that important.
416[[/folder]]
417
418[[folder:Who was the guy with the bow and arrow?]]
419* Minor 'scratcher, really, but why was there such an emphasis on the random crossbow guy during the rainy fight scene? For some reason I was getting the impression he was supposed to be important and then he just... wasn't (he didn't even get to shoot anyone!). Was he only for building suspense?
420** He was using a compound bow, not a crossbow, and he is referred to as 'eye' by the SHIELD agent he's talking to on the radio. He's likely another marvel character, Hawkeye, in a cameo role.
421** Not likely. He ''is'' Hawkeye. Coulson refers to him as "Agent Barton", as in Clint Barton, as in Hawkeye. Just no silly purple getup.
422** It seems likely the entire sequence of Coulson (Son of Coul) and Barton was probably not in the original script, but was written and filmed later, after "Avengers" plans firmed up. Thus, it couldn't really affect the storyline.
423** It was also to show that Coulson had the situation under control and, GiantMook or no, Thor was only going to get as far as Coulson wanted him to go (same as when Erik "rescued" Thor later).
424** You sir just made me like that scene a whole lot more.
425[[/folder]]
426
427[[folder:Scientists mentioned by Selvig]]
428* Erik had some lines which was a shoutout to Hulk. He also mentioned that he had another scientist friend which he can call to ask for help when dealing with SHIELD. I just can't figure out who in the heavens this guy is.
429** WordOfGod says it's Hank Pym, but they took the name out because they thought they might be overloading people with references to other Marvel characters.
430** Aw man, that's a pity. It would have been an awesome reference.
431[[/folder]]
432
433[[folder:Loki in the post-credit scene]]
434* About the post-credits scene: What is Loki's presence here supposed to imply? Is he possessing Selvig's body? Has he killed and replaced Selvig? Or was Selvig really Loki all along?
435** Though it's never explained, I was under the impression that he was "influencing" Selvig in some manner. Perhaps some sort of mind control or suggestive power?
436** I agree, it's Loki using a JediMindTrick on Selvig!
437** He already demonstrated what amounts to telepathic tricks earlier, with his "none of you can see me" trip through the SHIELD outpost. Is it really all that shocking that he can also control minds. Why does he not use this in battle elsewhere? Probably because Asgardians and other magical/advanced beings are more tolerant of, and/or more perceptive of, telepathic influence.
438** Asgardian helmets might block telepathy, similar to how Sebastian Shaw's helmet blocked telepathy in ''Film/XMenFirstClass''.
439[[/folder]]
440
441[[folder:Where did the Casket end up?]]
442* FridgeHorror: Loki may still have the Casket of Ancient Winters with him, if he and the end of the Bïfrost ''both'' ended up on Earth. If not, where ''did'' the Casket end up?
443** Also, the remains of The Destroyer are on earth, so anyone (most likely SHIELD) can just research it.
444** Though being fair, it's not likely SHIELD will be able to do much with the pieces, any more than they did with Mjolnir.
445** As of ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', SHIELD researching the remains of the Destroyer, at least, is confirmed. Furthermore, they've built a {{BFG}} using the tech and it's complete enough for Coulson to use it against Loki, though he claims not to know what it does.
446** ''Thor:Ragnarok'' shows that the Casket is back in Asgard. Or was...
447[[/folder]]
448
449[[folder:Thor's fake ID]]
450* I'm a bit confused according to SHIELD's files Thor looks exactly like Dr. Donald Blake. Did Jane not mention he could be a twin of her ex, or do we just assume it was some spell of his banishment.
451** The ID was faked using Darcy's picture of Thor; SHIELD's computer notes this, but Coulson let's Thor go anyway so he can have him followed and potentially find out more about him (since he obviously wasn't talking in the interrogation).
452[[/folder]]
453
454[[folder:Thor and SHIELD being friendly suddenly?]]
455* SHIELD steals Jane's stuff and beats up Thor. Then they let him go (but keep watching him). Then Thor kills the Destroyer. And then Thor declares that SHIELD is a good organization, and he's happy to be allies with them (provided that they give Jane's stuff back). When exactly did Thor decide that SHIELD is one of the good guys? What did SHIELD do to earn his trust?
456** I think that Thor had it in his mind that they weren't really ''bad'' to start with; note how he doesn't do anything lethal when he first goes to retrieve Mjolnir. He'd have known from talking to Jane and from interacting with them directly that they were the government, and if he stopped to think about it, he'd realize SHIELD was doing the exact same thing his father did when the giants tried to take the Casket. Given Asgardian society, the idea of a government agency being truly bad and wrong is probably less likely to get into Thor's head than it would be for an Earthling.\
457I think at some point during his captivity with them, probably while Coulson was talking to him, he realized that SHIELD was a government agency trying to protect people. Plus, you know, they're named ''SHIELD''; Thor, who's probably not used to governmental acronyms, would be more likely to take that name at face value as indicative of what they do.
458** There is also the possibility that Thor simply made his vow so that Jane could get her stuff back. It was a barter more than a straight alliance.
459** SHIELD also pretty much did nothing to show they might be the bad guys -- they didn't torture Thor when he was captured (Whether they ''could'' is another issue altogether). They let him and his friends off without much issue.
460** Not to mention that the only reason they were holding him in the first place is because he broke into their base and started beating up their men. HE attacked THEM, and that probably weighed in heavily in his opinion of their response. Compared to Asgard's response to the Frost Giant intrusion, they were actually very merciful to Thor.
461** This, pretty much. Note that at several points in Thor's assault on the SHIELD facility, their soldiers were clearly carrying what were obviously weapons, but they continued trying to use nonlethal techniques against Thor, even when he was beating them senseless. When he reached Mjolnir and was paralyzed with despair after being unable to lift it, they captured him instead of killing him where he stood. And when Coulson was questioning Thor, he made it clear - in his own way - that he respected Thor's skills at besting his own men. That sense of honor, mercy, and restraint clearly left an impression on him.
462[[/folder]]
463
464[[folder:SHIELD building tunnels at the crash site]]
465* What's up with the Habitrailâ„¢ that SHIELD builds around Mjolnir? What possible purpose do all those rings of tunnels serve? And why leave Mjolnir open to the air? Why not just build a big dome, or erect a tent over the area?
466** I figured it was just so nobody trying to break in and steal Mjolnir couldn't get straight to it- they'd practically have to go through a maze, leaving plenty of time for the guards to catch & subdue them.
467** Pretty much this. It controls access to the room containing the hammer, forcing anyone who wants to reach it to go through the tunnels, where guards can check and stop them.
468** On the director's commentary track of the DVD, Creator/KennethBranagh uses a lot of words to say, effectively, "[[RuleOfCool It looked cool]]."
469** As for the lack of a roof: a certain guy with a bow probably wanted to be able to see his target...
470[[/folder]]
471
472[[folder:SHIELD suddenly being nice]]
473* Agent Coulson's respectful attitude after Thor destroys the Destroyer. Earlier he was pure "Respect Mah Authoritah", snatching just about everything Jane owns right out of her hands without compensation then decides NOT to brutalize Thor after watching him make "some of the most highly trained professionals in the world look like a bunch of minimum wage mall cops", then finally doing everything Thor asks(that part I could understand as pure intimidation - this-guy-just-walloped-some-Stark-level-superweapon-oh-I-don't-have-one-of-those-I'll-be-nice), and following through with it. What's his angle? Does SHIELD have some knowledge of Asgardians?
474** SHIELD is likely an offshoot or descendant of SSR, the organization taking its place during WWII. And when one considers that Red Skull had a hard-on for Norse mythology, and that Cap found an insanely powerful energy source in one of Red Skull's factories? When one eliminates the impossible...
475** Point of fact, Coulson ''does'' offer Jane a sizable check, even as they're taking her stuff. He says the amount should be fair compensation. As for not brutalizing Thor, well, why ''should'' he? He's one of the good guys, you expect him to just start torturing him? I'm guessing SHIELD probably doesn't know much about Asgardians in particular, but it's very, ''very'' clear that they know ''something'' is up with the hammer.\
476His "angle", is that SHIELD recognizes that Thor, who they've kept under surveillance since they let him go with Erik, is one of the good guys, and SHIELD is, you know, ''also'' one of the good guys. You seem to be under the impression that SHIELD is some sort of oppressive, evil government operation when that's exactly the opposite of what's being presented in the films.
477** They seem to be the kind of people who authorize their agents to "tase someone and watch Supernanny while they drool into the carpet." I'm thinking CTU from Series/TwentyFour at best and Section One from ''Series/LaFemmeNikita'' when they're sufficiently pissed off; protecting people through fear.
478** I really don't think one offhand, comical threat to Tony Stark, who is, let's face it, a {{jerkass}} is really the best thing to judge the whole organization by.
479** This basically. Thor is (when he's not kicking around their agents) extremely polite and respectful to them, unlike Tony Stark. Shield tends to be much nicer when dealing with polite characters like Thor or Captain America than wise-asses like Stark or Spider-Man. They only throw their weight around and act rude to Stark because he's very difficult to get to cooperate otherwise.
480** ^^ They ''seem'' like those kind of people? Based on what exactly? Did you even watch the movie?
481** [[http://lawandthemultiverse.com/2011/05/06/thor/ Here]] is an explanation of the whole SHIELD taking Jane Foster's stuff thing. Also, for the record, ''Series/TwentyFour'' is a ''terrible'' standard by which to judge law enforcement agencies, [[GovernmentAgencyOfFiction fictitious]] [[RealLife or not]].
482** Coulson threatening to tase Stark was just part of his gambit to get Tony to go to work, ''thinking'' that Big Brother was acting big, tough, and clueless. Recall if you will how Phil uses the tough-guy act and then... Just lets Stark go out for a spin in the sports car for fun? There's a good entry somewhere on the site that gives a good roundup on Coulson's personality as a manipulator on par with Loki.
483[[/folder]]
484
485[[folder:Jane & Co being surprised by Thor's friends]]
486* Why is it that Jane, Eric and Darcy took one look at Thor's crew and were instantly wide-eyed, gob-smacked, "This is impossible" amazed? Yeah, I understand that since they were gods not brought down to normal that they were living proof of everything Thor had been saying, but the others didn't know that right away! What, does actually wearing Nordic suits mean that they're the real [=McCoys=] and not just nutjobs that wandered off the set of a LARP? The evidence wasn't exactly watertight until the Destroyer showed up.
487** Because Jackie Chan, Robin Hood, Gimli, and Xena just showed up in Nordic armor and said, "Hey Thor! We found you!". That's either Thor telling the truth or four people with a shared delusion. They could also have some kind of power aura that Thor wouldn't have due to being brought down to normal.
488** Well, the power aura is possible. Otherwise, a shared delusion about being norse gods isn't ''that'' far fetched.
489** It probably didn't hurt that they were sort of leaning towards believing him by then anyway, too. Dude literally fell from the heavens on their watch.
490** They were pretty much the tipping point. Here is a guy who was in a crazy ass cloud, appeared on a crazy symbol laden engraving in the desert, has the body of a God, proclaims himself to be a God, is determined to reach a hammer that fell down from space (which is being investigated by SHIELD no less), is sufficient in kicking all sorts of ass, draws out a map of the cosmos (based on your own notes) and now he is joined by four people wearing leather, chainmail and plate armor have come knocking even though you're out in the middle of nowhere. One is hard to buy, but when you now have five people claiming to be Gods and a mountain of evidence backing them up its time to start believing.
491** Even the best LARP/Cosplay outfits are generally identifiable as such, if nothing else then by a weapon that is obviously safe to comply with local laws. Sif and Warriors Three are carrying very obviously NOT safe weapons. And as mentioned above, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern. For scientists like Jane and Selvig, even a political scientist like Darcy, five is more or less irrefutable proof. Now, granted, all this might take talking to Sif and WT for a bit, but for their initial reaction... well, if four dudes in Viking armor knocked on ''your'' kitchen window at breakfast, you'd be a tad out-of-sorts for a moment, too. And if you were playing host to someone claiming to be a Norse god at the time...
492[[/folder]]
493
494[[folder:Why is no war happening between Asgard and Jotunheim?]]
495* So Thor's foolish attack brings us to "the brink of war". And then we spend the entire movie "on the brink". Now granted, the entire movie is like 3 days long, but why were there no actual battles during this time? Why didn't we at least see the Asgardian or frost giant armies preparing for war?
496** As you said, the whole movie takes place over 3 days. The Frost Giants were probably still planning on what they would actually do. Plus, it seems that the only way the Frost Giants would get to Asgard is through Bifrost, which only seems to open from Heimdall's end, so they'd have to figure out just ''how'' to get there.
497** It could be Laufey's hesitation that delayed the start of the war, seeing as he knew the horrors of going to war with the Asgardians first hand. Watching Thor decimate dozens of Frost Giants and that giant ice monster probably didn't motivate him much either, especially since he'd be going to war without the Casket.
498** Yeah, with Thor killing frost giants by the hundreds, Odin ready to defend his realm, and the fact that they don't seem to have easy access to Asgard, it's likely that Laufey was bidding his time and trying to come up with the best means of attack. He was evil, not stupid.
499[[/folder]]
500
501[[folder:Did Heimdall know about Loki?]]
502* Having an omniscient character like Heimdall makes for some difficult questions. How would Heimdall not have known that Loki was a frost giant? Or at least, not an Asgardian? He should have noticed when the King came back from war with a baby not his own. How then could he have been surprised by Loki's ice blast? After the ice blast, Loki must have intended to kill him as Heimdall could have spoiled his plan by revealing the truth once freed. But how would Loki explain Heimdall being overcome by a handful of Frost Giants when even Odin appears slightly intimidated by him?
503** Is there anything to indicate that he ''didn't'' know? What surprised him was that Loki had the Casket, which Heimdall wouldn't have seen him get since his gaze is always turned towards outside threats. I'm sure, though, that Loki had a story to explain what happened to him; he just never got a chance to use it.
504** Heimdall is 'omniscient' in the sense that he can see ''anything'' at a given time, not ''everything'' at all times. Note when he summons the Warriors Three and Sif; they say that Heimdall ''might'' be watching them right now. He has to ''watch'' something in order to see it.\
505As for him not knowing? Again, says who? Odin is his king, he wouldn't have needed to hide something like that from Heimdall. And yeah, Frost Giants' powers include freezing things on ''contact'', over an extended period of time. Freezing things ''instantly'' from a ''distance'' requires the Casket, and Loki had already demonstrated an ability to hide himself from Heimdall's gaze.
506** Did Loki have the casket at the time? I thought Loki just used a "spell" to freeze Heimdall? Loki seemed to have other powers besides the ability to create illusions.
507** Pretty sure he was holding it. In any case, long-distance freezing is, as mentioned, not part of a Frost Giant's standard repertoire of powers, so whether or not Heimdall knew what he was, it wouldn't have helped him here.
508** Yes, he was holding it. We watched Loki enter the Vault and fetch the Casket just before his confrontation with Heimdall.
509** No we didn't; we watched him enter the Vault to loose the Destroyer on Thor. That said, he does whip out the Casket right quick, then make it disappear just as fast.
510[[/folder]]
511
512[[folder:Odin being against war]]
513* So is nobody bothered that Odin, the head honcho of all Nordic gods is against war? We're talking about gods coming from a belief system in which you have to die in battle to have a decent afterlife (that is go to Valhalla). How come Thor's bloodthirsty attitude is looked down upon in a society which apparently gave rise to the Viking culture?
514** This isn't Norse mythology. Besides, even there Odin didn't exactly go around saying "Kill everything for the lulz." Thor's problem wasn't his bloodlust, it was that he was basically calling for genocide -- the extermination of everything in Jotunheim. Odin didn't shrink from warfare and battle when he had to, and when he did he was no pushover, but being the wisest being in Asgard, he just didn't see the need for killing.
515** Fridge Brilliance:For all we know Odin could have been like Thor. In his younger days but the war with the Frost Giants could have shown him the horrors of war. This is also why Odin was so furious at Thor. It reminded him of how he was like.
516** Thor never called for genocide. He wanted to teach the giants a lesson so they would know not to come back. That alone means that he wasn't planning on killing them all.
517** So the Asgardians are supposed to have inspired the Vikings, however: a) the Vikings were not really as barbaric as pop culture would have you believe (occasionally very violent, yes, but so were most other cultures), b) who says the Vikings didn't come up with most of the 'warrior' aspects of Odin themselves? He probably didn't ''encourage'' worship, but they saw him acting the badass and assumed (not totally incorrectly) he was an all-powerful war god. Also, c) I do also like the idea that Odin was more ruthless back in his younger days.
518** While all Norse gods have their warrior aspect, they have many others besides. Look at the story of Loki murdering Baldur. After arranging Baldur's death (involving magically forging a sprig of mistletoe, the only thing that hadn't sworn to never harm Baldur, into a spear, and getting a blind god to throw it at him), Loki is brought before Odin for judgement. Odin decides that Loki will go free, with ''no'' punishment, if he can but shed one sincere tear of remorse for Baldur's death. Now, Baldur was ''the'' most beloved of all Aesir (which is why everything in creation agreed to do him no harm), and according to some tellings his death kickstarts Ragnarok. Despite Loki having murdered the most beautiful and beloved god of all (and possibly bringing about the end of the world), Odin was still prepared to let him go scot-free if he just felt really bad about it! Compare to, say, what Zeus did to Prometheus for handing a dumb ape a burning stick. . . Odin is primarily a god of wisdom and knowledge. His emphasis on warfare is largely due to his knowledge that Ragnarok is coming, and he can't stop it, but he'll try anyway. Point of fact: dying in battle wasn't the "only" way to a good afterlife. Half the slain of a battle go to Valhalla (Odin's Boot Camp for Ragnarok Soldiers), the other half go to Folkvang (Freya's hall, where they're reunited with their lovers after death.) Everyone else goes to Hel/Hela's domain, which is just an afterlife, not a particularly unpleasant one, despite what Christian missionaries will tell you. Sure, Hela had a little corner of her domain set aside for people who needed some extra punishment, but by and large, Hel was just a place you went so you didn't mess things up by being a dead person in the land of the living. Under his aspect as a god of wisdom and knowledge, war for war's sake is about the least wise thing a person can do. Hence, him being very disappointed and angry with Thor for doing exactly that.
519** Thor Ragnarok explains why.
520[[/folder]]
521
522[[folder:Why is Heimdall supposed to be the most powerful Asgardian?]]
523* Okay, this has more to do with the fandom than with the movie, but WHY does everyone seem to assume that Heimdall is the most powerful Asgardian? In terms of power, he's above average sure, but the only reason he's the guard is because he can SEE the attack coming before it reaches Asgard, not because he can actually FIGHT it.
524** He ''is'' a pretty tough bastard, and it certainly helps that almost nothing escapes him. Maybe not the most powerful Asgardian, but definitely the most ready for a fight.
525** The dialogue from other Asgardians makes Heimdall out to be a very intimidating fellow. Loki asks him if Odin feared him, and Volstagg's response to "Heimdall demands your presence" is "We're doomed." This isn't a conclusive indication of how powerful he is in combat, but it's almost certainly helped to inform the perception of him as very powerful.
526** Note that Loki's plan for putting Heimdall out of commission was "Use the Jotun's old planetary scale WMD on him personally." And this didn't kill Heimdall, it just incapacitated him for a while. I think that is a decent indication of power.
527[[/folder]]
528
529[[folder:Odin calling Thor greedy and cruel]]
530* "YOU ARE A VAIN, GREEDY, CRUEL BOY!" Vain, yes, but I don't see Thor displaying greed or cruelty at any point in the film. I could think of several more fitting words for Odin to throw at Thor: savage, self-righteous, brainless, arrogant, reckless, self-centered and short-tempered.
531** One could consider that trying to wage war on the Jotuns -- basically waltzing over there to murder them without provocation -- is pretty cruel.
532** You could also say that trying to wage war solely because he likes to fight and not caring about how this war would affect both Asgard and Jotunheim is pretty greedy too.
533** I doubt Thor's actions could be described as "without provocation". A group of Jotuns broke into their Vault, killed the guards and tried to make off with the very artifact that allowed them to threaten other worlds in the first place. Don't forget that the Jotuns struck first, again.
534** For all Thor and the other Asgardians know, the three Jotun that snuck into Asgard are a splinter group of rebels, acting on their own without any approval from any legitimate government of Jotunheim. Before committing all of Asgard to a what was either a thawing of the Asgard/Jotunheim Cold War or the Second World War equivalent, it might have been a good idea for Thor and Co. to, you know, ask questions (politely) or search in Asgard for how the Jotun entered in the first place. Heimdall let the group through he Bifrost to investigate, not start a war. Even if the Jotun [[CycleOfRevenge "struck first"]], Thor was over-escalating, making him both greedy for glory/fame, vain in his callous treatment of [[WhatMeasureIsANonhuman life]], and cruel in his overwhelming desire for war.
535** I think that's going a little too far. The fact of the matter is, Thor was overreacting to the incursion... but Odin was severely ''under''reacting. Odin could have at least demanded an explanation from Laufey. Thor does suggest going to Jotunheim and kicking some ass rather than all that other stuff... but wise old Odin, the one that calls him all those names later, didn't suggest any of that other stuff either, he was just "Nope, they're dead, clearly nothing to worry about, let's pretend it never happened." which is, arguably, an even worse approach. (One wonders what, if anything, he said to the families of the guards? "Well, we killed those specific frost giants that killed them, so you're ordered not to feel bad about it.") So, again, the best explanation is that Thor and Odin are being extremely like each other throughout these scenes... in this scene they're both going too far to opposite extremes, in the later argument scene they're just snapping hurtful insults at each other.
536** And he was pretty hungry for the throne of Asgard (and all the power that comes with it). That equals greed.
537** He was angry and looking for words. Not everyone can whip up a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech out of nothing, especially when rattled (putting it lightly).
538** This makes sense, especially as he shows {{Angrish}} not long afterward.
539[[/folder]]
540
541[[folder:Odin getting so fast to the Bifrost]]
542* Upon waking, how was Odin able to get from his bed chambers all the way to the end of the bifröst in time to catch Thor and Loki? Does he have flight or teleportation powers? The mental image of the old man madly sprinting down the rainbow bridge had me chuckling.
543** Odin's the strongest of all the gods on Asgard. He can pretty much do whatever the hell he wants.
544** It is possible that Sleipnir is faster than normal horses because he has additional legs and that Odin rode there on him.
545[[/folder]]
546
547[[folder:Heimdall doesn't get punished by Odin?]]
548* Why doesn't Odin punish Heimdall when he let Thor, Loki and the others go to Joutenheim the first time around? It's pretty heavily implied that he doesn't have to take orders from anyone except Odin, and Heimdall's actions almost resulted in war. I can see Thor being punished for dragging the others along, but this has always baffled me. Someone, please explain?
549** I don't think the implication is that he only takes orders from Odin. Technically speaking, Heimdall is just a "gatekeeper." It's more like Heimdall is considered a wise and powerful badass and everyone greatly respects him. He has a reputation for being awesome. You could say he's not ''a'' gatekeeper, he's ''THE GATEKEEPER''. I'd wager that if Heimdall gives you advice, you take it. Except for Thor and Loki, who kind of do what ever the heck they want once they set their minds to it. Even if Thor and Loki are doing something incredibly stupid, they're both still Asgardian Prince's and he has to follow their orders unless Odin has stated otherwise.
550[[/folder]]
551
552[[folder:Why the need to odin-sleep?]]
553* Why does Odin even need to enter the Odinsleep? No mention was made of the Odin Force in the movie, and he didn't appear to be all that powerful. The only things he did that seemed like they might have required use of the Odin Force were depowering Thor, making Loki look like an Asgardian, and possibly summoning dark energy some time during ''The Avengers''.
554** Clearly he was Odintired.
555** My question is: why the Odinsleep only about two days long? It was treated like a huge emergency and yet it was extremely short. If he only needs two days to regain his powers, it shouldn't be a disaster requiring a new king.
556** They had no idea how long it was going to last. Frigga said they weren't sure he would ever wake up. That's why it was an emergency --they were on the brink of war and they had ''no idea'' if their ruler was ever gonna be conscious again.
557[[/folder]]
558
559[[folder:Why didn't Thor destroy the ice?]]
560* Thor needing to destroy the Bifrost is all dramatic and everything, but why not smash the ''much weaker'' ice channeling the energy? It would have taken only one hit and done the same job.
561** What makes you think that ice powered by what's treated as a doomsday weapon in its own right is "much weaker"?
562** Also, he couldn't get near the Bifrost.
563** Heimdall broke free by himself, and while he is damn powerful, he's fighting from the inside. It's a lot weaker when you have room to swing and the hammer is said to be the strongest force of destruction period. As for not being able to reach the Bifrost, he had ample time to do it while he was pounding away at the bridge. Hell, he could have just thrown the hammer from where he was standing.
564** My guess is that Thor was smart enough to assume (whether he was correct or not) that hitting the ice-WMD with a giant magic hammer wasn't the best idea. If anything, it would have made ''everything'' go to pieces, and a whole lot faster too.
565[[/folder]]
566
567[[folder:Odin's eye]]
568* If the Asgardians have the healing room, why does Odin still only have one eye?
569** Healing room =/= it can heal ''everything''.
570** In the Old Norse myths, Odin sacrificed his eye at Mimir's spring to gain the Wisdom of the Ages. It makes comic book sense that healing his eye would take that Wisdom away.
571** Even if that's not the case here, the healing rooms can't heal everything, and Odin could have left it as a reminder of the horrors of war.
572[[/folder]]
573
574[[folder:Loki screaming in the vault]]
575* Really, really inconsequential, but when Loki is talking to Odin in the scene where the latter falls into his sleep mid-argument, Loki is....Rather loud as he talks to his father ("TELL ME!" being one example). What's strange to me is then, after Odin falls into sleep, Loki shouts for the guards.....Who almost immediately run into the room. How is it that they heard this summons, but not Loki yelling at his adoptive Dad? ........Magic, I guess?
576** Their unswerving obedience to their king meant they trusted whatever the heck he did and that he had control over the situation however bad it sounded (remember, the Destroyer was in the same room). When Loki called for the guards to help him, the situation changed. Basically, there's a difference between rushing to help your neighbors every time they have a domestic squabble and rushing in when one of them has a heart attack.
577** There's also the fact that "TELL ME!" is a different animal from "GUARDS! SOMEONE! HELLLLP!"
578** Plus, look at the family. Thor, Loki, and Odin, are all {{Large Ham}}s. The royal guards are definitely used to them yelling at each other, and have probably learned a long time ago to just turn their head and try not to listen in on the family drama, but they'll still come when summoned.
579[[/folder]]
580
581[[folder:Disks on Thor's armour]]
582* Just what were those circular objects Odin took from Thor's shoulders when banishing him?. I'd assume they'd hold up his cape, but including them in the removal makes it seem like they're a badge of office or something.
583** I assumed they were minor magic items he had earned throughout his life.
584** Most probably it was just meant to be a [[InsigniaRipOffRitual symbolic act]] - like ripping the badges off a dismissed officer's uniform.
585** Kenneth Branagh said, that he stole that scene from a film about the Dreyfus Affair.
586** From what Odin says when he's ripping them away, I assumed that they and the other circles on his armor that fall off at the same time were symbolic of the Nine Realms... IE, that as a Prince of Asgard, it's Thor's privilege and duty to look after ''all'' of them to some extent, and he's proven himself unworthy or incapable of doing so.
587[[/folder]]
588
589[[folder:Destroying the bridge]]
590* I have read every reference to the Bifrost Bridge on this page, and I still don't understand: Why did Thor decide to destroy the bridge at the end, why did that save Jotunheim, and why did it result in cutting Asgard off from Earth? From what I see, Loki opened the bridge to Jotunheim so that he could destroy that world by letting the bridge "rip Jotunheim apart." Thor traps Loki with the hammer but realizes he can't get close enough to the hub where the bridge generates to shut it down, so he just destroys the bridge to stop it from destroying Jotunheim. Now, since Loki had opened the bridge to Jotunheim, it seems to me that destroying the bridge when it's in that position should either: close only the road to Jotunheim from now on, or close the road to all the other realms from now on. Loki tries to stop Thor by telling him that destroying the bridge means he'll never see Jane again -- okay, so destroying the bridge when it's open closes the road to all other realms. But at the very end, Thor says, "So, Earth is lost to us," as if destroying the bridge when it led only to Jotunheim closed only the road to Earth -- huh? How did that happen? I'm not up-to-date on either my Marvel comics mythology or Norse mythology, so, any experts out there, care to share what I'm missing about the magical rules behind this bridge that makes the ending make sense?
591** You're misunderstanding something. The Bifrost isn't the pathway between the worlds. The Bifrost is the ''machine'' that creates the pathway. Thor destroyed the machine that Asgard used to travel to different worlds. Asgard lost its method of creating pathways, so any place that requires such a pathway to get to is lost to them. By saying, "Earth is lost to us," there's no reason to assume he means ''only'' Earth. Thor is only mentioning Earth because that's the one he cares about.
592[[/folder]]
593
594[[folder:Asgard breaking contact with Midgard]]
595* Why did the Asgardians cut off contact with humans for so many centuries?
596** Probable due to a combination of not wanting to lord over the nine realms, avoiding conflict, letting humans grow on their own, and drawing the other worlds away. Odin did not want to rule the nine realms. At the time the Aesir were on earth they were mistaken as gods. Humans would either curry their favor or fight them out of fear/jealousy. The other worlds would have justification of coming to Earth by claiming the Asgardians were there. I think the largest part of it is humans just were not ready.
597** It could be that being so long-lived and watching over the rest of the Nine Realms just took their attention away from Earth while they were busy defending the other realms. A few centuries would mean little to them.
598[[/folder]]
599
600[[folder:Jane and Darcy's lack of knowledge of Norse Mythology]]
601* When Thor falls from the guy and meets Dr. Foster, Dr. Selvig, and Darcy, he refers to him as "Thor" and uses words like "Mjolnir" and "Bifrost". However, only Selvig appears to recognize these words, because he's Scandinavian and has heard stories of Norse gods as a kid. But the other two are also university-educated, and Norse mythology (particularly the name "Thor") is pretty well-known all around the Western world, so how come they didn't realize what Thor was talking about?
602** A big reason that Thor is well known is because of the comics keeping his name in the public consciousness. And even if people are aware of Mjolnir, most people know it as "Thor's Hammer." Bifrost really isn't something that's well known, it's something you'd mainly hear about if you did research into it. As for the rest, Jane and the others are science educated, not necessarily mythology educated.
603** It's quite likely that, in the MCU, Thor is not as widely known outside of those with an interest in Old Norse mythology precisely because a big-time comic book company hasn't been publishing fictional exploits of him in the modern day for the last fifty years. Even in our world, before the films, Thor was still relatively obscure. If weren't a comic or mythology nerd, you probably hadn't heard of him. For most Americans, "Pagan Thunder God" means Zeus, not Thor.
604[[/folder]]
605
606[[folder:Loki's Ancestry]]
607* How could Loki not know he's half-giant? Myth/NorseMythology states this right out, and in this film, Earth got its mythology from Asgard. How could something that was common knowledge on Earth be a secret in Asgard?
608** There are many details that don't line up between Myth/NorseMythology and Marvel's Asgardians, the most immediate being Loki as Odin's son and Thor's brother. Loki probably had heard it and simply assumed the humans got it wrong, as usual, when really they were on to something in this case.
609** Loki probably brought the mythology book he found it in to Thor. "Look, brother. See what ridiculous stories Midgard has thought up." "What will they think of next, Loki? That I am Freya?" "Actually... look here."
610** And Sif is Thor's wife in the real myths. We can probably assume the myths are a bit different in the Marvel Universe and don't contain these "spoilers".
611** Also, Norse mythology contains a lot of prophecies, so it is possible that the myths contain a lot of things that haven't happened yet, and that the Asgardians don't know it because they haven't been to Earth in a long time.
612[[/folder]]
613
614[[folder:Loki's Plan]]
615* Exactly what was the point of sending the Destroyer after Thor and his friends? Even if Thor were to somehow regain Mjolnir and his powers, the only way to get back to Asgard is through Heimdall, whom Loki merely froze and left at the Bifrost, apparently not realizing how that might backfire. Second, exactly what made him think Odin would react any differently to his actions than he did to Thor's? Finally, exactly how was going to explain all his actions to Odin when he woke up?
616** For all his cleverness, Loki is incredibly short-sighted and unstable. He has no real plan and was making it up as he went along. Thor has a greater claims to the throne so if the Warriors Three returned with him he might become king and ruin everything. Heimdall has already betrayed Loki. Loki decided to kill Thor and his allies to prevent them from ruining his plans or supplanting him. He figured he would use the attempted assassination of Odin to cover him the death of Heimdall and justify the genocide of the frost giants thinking it would all please Odin, prove Loki is worthy of the throne and prove he is an Asgardians by destroying their hated enemies. He probable figured he would come up with something to cover Thor's death later. How was he going to explain/justify it all? He probable couldn't and thought he could make it up later.
617[[/folder]]
618
619[[folder:Why are the Frost Giants considered a threat to Asgard?]]
620* The Jotun have lost their greatest magic relic to Asgard, they can't travel to Asgard without inside help, and Asgard has a weapon of mass destruction (the bifrost) that can literally destroy their home world at Odin's command and they can do nothing to stop it. Yet when Laufey declares war on Asgard after Thor starts a fight in his realm, Odin takes the threat completely seriously instead of laughing in his face. What can the Jotun even do to back up that threat?
621** Nothing. No one actually treats them as a threat. They are ''threatening'', in that if they ever reclaimed their glory the first thing they'd do is destroy Asgard, but as Odin tries to explain to Thor, that's not a good enough reason to exterminate them. Due to their long lifespans, many of the veterans of the last war are still alive. Give it another generation and they'll all die out and hopefully rebuild their society without the Cask of Ancient Winters or imperialism.\
622As for Odin taking the threat seriously, he didn't, not really. He took Thor's actions seriously, and understood that the Jotun had a legitimate grievance, even if they couldn't act on it. To put it another way, it's like a Middle-Eastern country (one of the ones without nukes) declaring war on America. They can't actually win, but they can cause a bit of damage, and just nuking them isn't an option because of both innocents in the crossfire and the fact that they have a point.
623** I think it is also due to the potential greater ramifications. The peace between the realms is fragile. From the deleted scenes, Thor and friends have had their fair share of battles. The frost giants may not be a threat to Asgard, but they can cause trouble among the other realms. The war could easily spread as other groups join in who dislike Asgard or outside invaders like the Marauders try to take advantage of the chaos. Worse, with Thor as the aggressor in the PR department Laufey has the moral high ground. Using Bifrost would make Odin appear to be a genocidal tyrant. So while the Frost Giants may not be a direct threat any war could easily escalate with it taking years and countless lives to reestablish the peace.
624** On the other hand, just because we never see them travel to Asgard without Asgardian assistance doesn't mean they ''can't.'' It's possible they have the ability to attack Asgard, but it's not as easy or fast as stepping through the Bifrost. While it seems likely the Jotuns couldn't destroy Asgard outright in their current state, it seems equally likely that they could do significant damage and cost significant lives. And Odin is against "the horror of war" probably for the exact reason that it kills people.
625[[/folder]]
626
627[[folder:How does Thor know that the "satellite" is Mjolnir?]]
628* The men in the diner mention that the item that crashed in the desert is heavy and cannot be lifted, and Thor starts smiling and immediately knows that they're talking about Mjolnir. But as we know, Mjolnir isn't actually ''heavy''. And by this point, Thor doesn't know yet that Odin put an enchantment on it (since Odin threw the hammer after him and he didn't hear his father whispering the enchantment, did he?), so to Thor, Mjolnir must still be just a powerful warhammer. So how does he know that this item that no one can lift is Mjolnir?
629** Possibly Mjolnir was originally enchanted to be too heavy for ''mortals'', or the ability to lift it was reserved for Thor alone. The requirement that he actually be worthy was added later.
630[[/folder]]
631

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