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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Also at some point he found the time to pop on over to Earth and mind-control Selvig into learning about the Tesseract from Nick Fury, before spontaneously not mind-controlling Selvig and teleporting across the universe back to Thanos's pad, so that he could use the Tesseract to teleport dramatically to Earth once more.
That stinger might just be the biggest plot hole in the MCU.
Loki has also some screwed up memories or he is deep in denial. For example he accuses Thor of having pushed him off the Bifrost. But we all know that this isn't true, Loki let go and basically attempted suicide in reaction to Odin's "No".
In addition there is a moment in which it seems as if Thor is getting through Loki and then suddenly Loki stabs him in the side. It could be a trick, but realistically speaking, Loki is already close enough to Thor, there is no reason for him to pretend that he reconsiders.
And honestly, I kind of like the idea that the puny god scene unintentionally broke whatever hold Thanos had over Loki (worked for Clint, right?) and that he then spend the time in prison mostly healing from the abuse he suffered. If we take the deleted scene from TDW in account, what Loki wants the most is admiration. He would never admit any weakness, not even if the weakness would exonerate him at least partly (plus, it is not like Odin had any intention to listen to him AND Loki is a known liar, so who would believe him anyway).
My personal fanwank for that one is that Loki wasn't really controlling him, he was planting suggestions, and he wasn't really there, this was just his mind touching Selvig's mind just enough that he would open the portal. I mean, there has to be some sort of connection, right? Otherwise Thanos wouldn't know when and where to open the portal....
edited 1st Dec '17 2:33:57 PM by Swanpride
Pretty much all of that.
When it was still just a rumor, I thought the idea of the Mind Stone being in the scepter was stupid, because it meant Thanos gave Loki a f*cking Infinity Gem and was like, "Be sure to bring it back, try not to use it against me, bye now!"
But Age of Ultron fixed that too, by revealing that there's an advanced AI in the scepter. The implication that it, not Loki, both provides a solid justification for the Mind Gem being in it while also doing an amazing job of validating the Loki Mind Control theory.
Thanos didn't give Loki an Infinity Gem. Thanos put an Infinity Gem in charge of Loki.
edited 1st Dec '17 2:34:17 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Thor 1 was also at a point where they weren't so clear on what the extent of Loki's magic is. Later stuff codifies him to: he can turn invisible, maybe teleport, has super strength and that's it, but the stinger of Thor 1 has him overshadowing Selvig of his own power before Avengers established that - no - he has to use the staff to do that.
Since Phase 1 was the experimental first foray, it gets a pass, though.
edited 1st Dec '17 2:41:49 PM by KnownUnknown
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You know, that never occurred to me, but this might be why Ultron was so intend on conquering or destroying the world. If we assume that Tony's program to "protect humanity" clashed with whatever Thanos programmed (most likely "ensure that Loki conquers the earth and opens the portal for me"), the result would be "destroy the earth to protect humanity" wouldn't it?
Good thing that I am still writing on his article....
According to TDW he can also create illusions, change his appearance and create a double of himself. Above all, though, he is really smart. If Thor can talk to Banner on a somewhat equal level regarding Asgardian technology, Loki should be able to run in rings around him.
edited 1st Dec '17 2:43:08 PM by Swanpride
Here’s my attempt at plot hole fixing.
Thor says that Shield messing with the Tesseract drew attention to it. They started messing with it after the New Mexico incident. Around that time, Loki fell off the Bifrost to who knows where, and was somehow found by either Thanos or one of his servants.
In the stinger with Selvig, Loki looks very sweaty and bruised and emaciated. This could indicate torture at Thanos’ hands. Thanos orders Loki to use his abilities to check out the power surges from Earth, and that’s the stinger with the tesseract.
Thanos or a servant sets up the knock-on-the-tesseract door. Thanos sends Loki to go get the tesseract, and promises revenge against Thor via attacking Earth. The mind stone is to keep Loki in line, and I think it probably amped up Loki’s aggression/latent megalomania.
The scepter scene with the Other is a check-in, since the Other asks how things are going. Loki mouths off a little, but seems tense and fearful, then the Other zaps him, ending the conversation. Loki keeps with the open-a-portal plan, opens the portal, gets slammed by Hulk, then chills out a bit once the Other and the mind stone whammy are gone.
In Thor: The Dark World, Loki mouths off a little to Odin about the Earth invasion, but there’s not much conviction behind it.
Re: Loki’s powers- he isn’t shown using the Bifrost to visit Thor on Earth in Thor 1. He used an illusion, which vanishes when Coulson enters. Loki’s illusions can be solid or immaterial, since he tries to pick up Mjolnir on Earth in Thor 1, and successfully mimics cutting off Thor’s hand in TDW. His Odin disguise also interacts with other objects.
edited 1st Dec '17 2:48:47 PM by wisewillow
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I think we've had a couple conversations about it but its decent arc welding.
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And if we assume that Thanos is somehow connected to the AI in the sceptre, he might have felt it when Ultron was destroyed, which explains why he finally decided to move.
Since we are talking about connections between the movies, I throw this video essay into the ring:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKXxiiEbiCA
It's an extended version of an older one called "Duality in Storytelling", pointing out that the structure of the MCU allows the audience to experience different perspective on the same event.
Let's take the Battle of New York. In The Avengers, it is kind of a fun romp. But one with huge consequences. Since then we have seen it from the perspective of someone loosing someone during the battle (in Jessica Jones), we have seen the consequences to a bunch of fire fighters who contracted an alien virus (Agents of Shield), we have explored the notion of alien technology lying around (in Item 45 and Spider-man: Homecoming), the perspective of someone on the street (in Civil War) and we have the general changes in New York during the Defenders show in general.
Or Cap. After we get to know him we get to see him from Peggy's perspective, from Tony's perspective, from Coulson's perspective, from Howard's perspective aso, and they all see him slightly different.
edited 1st Dec '17 2:55:00 PM by Swanpride
I read Loki 'saw things' when he fell off the Bifrost and that was why he was so villainous. (Clearly he gained his fourth wall knowledge from the comics :P)
The Protomen enhanced my life.Hilarious fact that someone on tumblr pointed out: in ~6 years Loki has been within 5 feet of 3 infinity stones (mind stone, tesseract/space stone, aether/reality stone), 2 more than Thanos.
Aaaaand I just remembered that Loki sent the aether to the Collector. Which really should kill any idea of Loki wanting to help Thanos, cause Loki could have handed Thanos two infinity stones at the end of Thor: TDW. Save his own skin AND look like an overachiever.
Edit: Aaaaaaand I just realized how Thanos finds out the Collector has a stone. Loki tells him (either to save his own skin or the Asgardians).
edited 1st Dec '17 3:18:42 PM by wisewillow
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Even more hilarious is that Thor has practically held three of them in his hand AND was close to a fourth one and never realized it even though he actively searched for them at one point. (Loki was also close to four of them, btw).
I am not quite sure of Odin or Loki send the aether away. After all we don't know exactly when the change happened.
edited 1st Dec '17 3:19:48 PM by Swanpride
Omg, that’s right- Strange was wearing it! HAHAHAHAHA.
Edit: ah, shit. That’s probably why Thanos goes to Earth.
Loki: “Ok, yes, I didn’t bring you the tesseract BUT if you don’t murder me/the rest of Asgard I can tell you where 2 other stones are.
Loki was in Asgard during the Aether battle and talked to Odin while in Einerjar disguise. So the change would have been before Thor got back with the Aether.
edited 1st Dec '17 3:24:09 PM by wisewillow
Good thing that I am still writing on his article....
It occurred to me. I've suggested it several times.
Right from the beginning of the film, we see that the scepter is trying to make Ultron using Strucker. In its presence, Strucker and his men have been building robots. They have a whole facility down there for creating these shells, which Ultron later puts into production for his drones.
They just haven't been successful. Cue "I'm not Tony Stark" soundbyte.
Then Tony takes a crack at it and the Ultron integration is an abject failure until two seconds after he turns his back on the scepter, whereupon it's suddenly an overwhelming success. Ultron comes into existence and can't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it, because he's one part Tony's peacekeeping program and one part scepter AI.
Yup. The reveal that Thanos is apparently monitoring the Ultron situation and is frustrated for Ultron's failure to carry out his agenda is the clincher.
edited 1st Dec '17 3:23:39 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Couple thoughts:
I forget what order the films are in, but what made me really think there was something to the "control by the scepter" idea is the fact that besides the reveal that it's a supercomputer and seemingly is responsible for making Ultron an Omnicidal Maniac, in Guardians, Ronan goes on about the same kind of The Evils of Free Will idea as Loki. And as of right now, we get a sense that Thanos talks along similar lines. The only issue I see is that Ronan of course had a different stone (although Thanos could still be controlling him to an extent/was seemingly insane on his own), and more importantly, despite being empowered by being blasted with Loki's scepter, Wanda and Pietro didn't really seem to be crazy, or at least not in a megalomaniac/totalitarian way.
I mean I still think that Loki acts this way in Avengers because Whedon wanted an incompetent Darkseid/Thanos as a villain. Nonetheless, the MCU films are really good about Canon Wielding and retroactively giving greater complexity to earlier movies. And I will concede that this set-up does retroactively do a good job of setting the groundwork both for Thanos eventually conquering Earth himself, as well as Loki's character development in Thor 3, where his shtick in The Avengers is kind of an Old Shame.
I think Whedon has this certain contempt for "goody-two-shoes" characters that explains in part why Cap is more of a stick-in-the-mud and why Tony is so mocking of him. As a comparison, see the Wonder Woman script attributed to Whedon. Of course, there's a story reason in terns of how Howard idolized Steve and was a pretty shitty father, but I still think that there's a pretty different take on Cap in non-Whedon films. And the combination of his really assholeish techbro take on Tony in The Avengers really soured me on him as a character. I think the first time I've actually liked Tony was in Civil War and Homecoming, even though I can admit that they are following on from character beats established in Age of Ultron.
Tl; dr, I guess I'm going a Whedon as Scapegoat Creator thing. Sorry. But also, paradoxically, despite disliking a lot of his character choices, they actually work pretty well as foundations for later developments.
edited 1st Dec '17 3:28:14 PM by Hodor2
Whedon did seem to want different versions of all the characters than the MCU had created up to that point, Cap, Thor, and Loki in particular. You could blame that on Avengers 2012 being a fairly direct adaptation of The Ultimates at the time, but AOU ended up compounding the same mistakes.
The problem with Loki's characterization is hardly limited to The Avengers, though. They really didn't seem to know how evil they wanted to make him. Ultimate Loki would've given the same speech but been very clearly winking at the cameras all the way through, preying on what he knew to be the worst of human weakness, that desire for an idealized authority to submit to, because he's purely there to wreak havoc and fuck with his brother, and if he gets to rule a petty world of mortals he really didn't care that much about? Bonus. But MCU Loki's more...tragic and confused than mischievous, I guess?
edited 1st Dec '17 4:39:53 PM by Unsung
He’s mischievous AND tragic and confused. Thor 1 arguably results from a prank gone wrong (letting in the Jotuns). Thor: TDW has lots of mischief, especially the prison-breakout and the showdown where Loki “died”. Thor: Ragnarok got the Loki characterization pretty well. Mischief really means tricks/lies/stirring shit up, and Loki does plenty of that. Too bad he also lies to himself. He takes everything Odin and Frigga says in Thor 1 and 2 from the worst angle possible.
edited 1st Dec '17 3:48:57 PM by wisewillow
Whedon's problem can be summed up in his single line of thinking: "The Avengers should be invincible when they're all working together. So the only way they can be challenged is if they're constantly at odds."
To which I will point out: The entire history of Marvel Comics is full of enemies that can match and even defeat The Avengers, even when they're on the same page, which should be all the time. Including Ultron himself, who you fucked up!
My various fanfics.![]()
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Except that the dislike between Cap and Tony was already set up in the lead-up movies (there is even a scene in which Tony uses what seems to be some sort of model of the shield to prop up one of his experiments, much to Coulson's shock), and while Loki was originally not supposed to survive Thor (thankfully they figured out what they had on him in time), being difficult to figure out is kind of what his character is all about. We are not supposed to be completely sure of his motivations.
He doesn't portray them as invincible. But yeah, them working together being strong enough to face every enemy is kind of a thing in Superhero narratives and Whedon's own work. It is a nice notion.
edited 1st Dec '17 3:51:12 PM by Swanpride
Even Grim Reaper stomps the Avengers sometimes.
And he's just a guy that jammed a technological scythe onto his stump.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersI think a major aspect of Loki is his insecurity/unfavorite baggage. Note in Thor 1, he can’t believe Odin took him for love/pity- “you took me for a purpose. What was it? TELL ME!!!”
And since Odin ADMITS there was a purpose, Loki takes this to mean that the entire family relationship was a sham/lie. Frigga tried to reassure him while in Odin’s bedroom, but uses the very unfortunate phrasing “there’s always a purpose to everything your father does.”
And then Loki decides to genocide the Jotuns to prove he’s a worthy son/heir. Which is exactly what conquest-era Odin would probably have done, funnily enough.
edited 1st Dec '17 3:53:46 PM by wisewillow

It was probably long before he fell off Bifrost
have a listen and have a link to my discord server