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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
... say what now?
For all Ragnarok retconning in Odin is a terrible imperialist conqueror we never actually see him doing anything oppressive or controlling or imposing upon the nine realms at all or even ruling at all.
Edited by dcutter2 on Jul 12th 2022 at 1:29:24 PM
We do see that some of the other nine realms immediately fall into chaos slash revolutions once Asgard loses the ability to project force
Forever liveblogging the AvengersAnd the lack of proyecting force become a point when thanos wipe out the dwarfts.
Odin sketchy behavor was kinda there from the start, from the way he behave and hiding loki parentage to him, to his growl and rage at dark elves and so on, but his imperalist past is kinda sorta a retcon specially with two movies make him a flawed but benevolent father figure.....
In fact, ragnarok still make him so after all, given he appear to Thor in vision in this weird obi wan esque moment to tell Thor to find the strength in himself. Is kinda why I dont like the movie that much because it can be unfocus as hell(a complain I start to see more and more with the director it seens).
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"Odin being so long lived muddled the idea a little but I think his Thor 1 self, with the hindsight of the Ragnarok ragnetcon, is supposed to be a golden age type of imperialism
A Rome that had finished expansion and focused on the peace and prosperity of the provinces
It took a lot of conquering and death and betrayal to get to this point but now everyone’s just chilling. Making money. Don’t mind the fire demons, they’re just sour. Or the frost giants. They’re also just sore.
Stole some of their cultural treasures after the war. They need to get over it.
But yeah: the Frost Giants, despite being villains in the source material and dicks in the MCU too, kind of are a hint even in Thor 1 how Asgard operates
Edited by Bocaj on Jul 12th 2022 at 8:37:08 AM
Forever liveblogging the AvengersSo Asgard is basically the Kree if they decided to actually stop Imperialism in favor of actually making their society prosper?
Hmm. I could get behind that. Kinda makes me want to see a webseries about Kree politics now ala Star Wars: The Clone Wars, with dissenters pointing to Asgard to demonstrate what could happen to them if they don't think long-term.
Maybe an animated Asgard prequel as well, just to see what Odin was like at the height of his power before deciding to banish Hela.
Edited by MatthewWayne on Jul 12th 2022 at 5:43:50 AM
"I'm Mr. Blue, woah-woah-ooh..."![]()
Stole their cultural treasure and is low key planning to put an Asgard friendly Loki on the throne eventually.
But yeah, Asgard doesn’t seem to field any troops in any of the nine realms. I guess with the Bifrost and a man who can see almost everything you don’t need to
Edited by Bocaj on Jul 12th 2022 at 8:45:52 AM
Forever liveblogging the AvengersThe fact that every enemy nation of Asgard is a bunch of marauding monsters really muddles it.
Like say you have this nation minding its own business until its attacked by an enemy empire intent on conquering everything. But the defender nation beats back the attacking nation and even winds up taking everything they have in the process.
Who's the victim there?
Edited by slimcoder on Jul 12th 2022 at 5:53:46 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."The Dark Elves really muddle it by being an existential threat to all life, the universe, and everything
Didn’t get that impression from the frost giants though.
Edited by Bocaj on Jul 12th 2022 at 8:52:12 AM
Forever liveblogging the Avengers"The enemy was going to wipe us out and then everyone else!" is Imperialism Propaganda 101. That the movie that says it has an anti-imperialism message plays it 100% straight, just so the hero can have an easy guilt-free kill to demonstrate his hero cred, is thoughtless at best.
The first movie implied/possibly outright stated that without the Casket of Ancient Winters, Jotunheim was withering. So Odin didn't just take their cultural treasure and plot to put their stolen prince on the throne after he'd been raised Asgardian, he was also withholding a necessary resource and condemning them to die as their world became unlivable or become refugees.
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We're directly told (and see) the Jotuns in the process of conquering/freezing Earth and we're directly told (and see) the Dark Elves planning to plunge the universe into darkness. Now, maybe they're being driven to these actions as part of an effort to oppose Asgard's wars of conquest, but that's a pretty wild guess as we have absolutely no idea of the timing of events (except they have to be post-initial conquest, as otherwise, the battles would simply have been Hela massacring every enemy).
Frankly, a reasonable read is that as soon as Asgard lost it's massive power advantage with the imprisonment of Hela and the death of the Valkyries, the component parts of its empire begin to rebuild/prepare for rebellions/revolutions we see later.
And maybe the movie that revealed Asgard was built on unjustified conquest should have established that, instead of introducing another faction with a grudge against Asgard that completely deserves to be dealt with violently by the heir invading their realm and killing their king. For all that everyone says that Ragnarok puts the previous movies in a new light, it steadfastly refuses to actually re-evaluate Asgard's actions in those movies. We're just told that Asgard did bad things, but don't worry, the wars we saw were actually justified.
I really hope they have Doom as the emperor king of his own country of Latveria like he's supposed to be, instead of a norman Osborn style business man or a carrie covered in metal like the past fantastic four movies, and I also hope he's not just used for one movie and that's it, he honestly deserves to be the next Loki getting multiple appearances and being a major player through the shared universe, I can easily see him getting his own tv show as Loki got too, I imagine have him appear in the first fantastic four movies like Thanos did in Avengers 1 and guardians of the galaxy 1 as the bigger bad behind the smaller villain, he deserves to get build-up big time and do some major damage when he's the main threat, and maybe later have him team up with the heroes in an enemy mine situation to take on Kang the conqueror.
As for the villain of the first fantastic four movies, I think Moleman could work fine since he's the first supervillain the fantastic four fought in their first appearance.
I envisioned it being more like Singapore - an extremely prosperous and well-run country, but with ridiculously draconian and suffocating rules. Doom doing a good job at running it would also hammer home how ridiculous his grudge towards Reed is, as he runs an entire goddamn country and runs it well and should be very over being that angry at one man.
I'm reminded of when Age of Ultron's depiction of Sokovia got a lot of flack from Eastern Europeans because it seemed like a generic Ruritania country filled with bad stereotypes. Would Marvel be falling into that same pitfall if they depict Latveria as an authoritarian country?
"I'm Mr. Blue, woah-woah-ooh..."Its a bit tricky with Doom. Since he's been portrayed as being both loved or hated by his people in the comics Depending on the Writer.
Personally adaptating it so his people have formed a cult of personality dedicated to him because, from their perspective, he is doing right by them and its the rest of the world thats the problem, would be the way to go.
His still portrayed as an authoritarian but its complicated by the genuine loyalty he inspires due to his charisma and the innovations he's introduced to his country, after it previously mismanaged by oligarchs, so something. The heroes being unable to convince his people to reject/overthrow him without creating a international incident that tends to comes with nations policing other nations would be a interestig layer of drama too.
Edited by Avenger09 on Jul 12th 2022 at 4:17:19 PM
Reminds me of when Superman defeated Darkseid in the animated series and he threw his bodies to the people expecting a revolt. He is shocked when they instead are still loyal to him, helping, and carrying him without command.
And as the injured Darkseid is lead away he merely says this, "I am many things Kal-El, but here I am God."
Man Michael Ironside has a Hell of a voice.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

He doesn't seem like someone they'd go with though.