Thor 3, AKA Thor: Ragnarok is a good movie, dare I say a great movie, and an easy 9/10. Thor’s good, albeit a bit of a jokester, Hulk’s good, Hela’s probably the best villain the MCU has, and the storyline itself is put together well. What Thor: Ragnarok lacks, that likely could’ve elevated it to a 10/10 is a good Loki. Below I’ll go into detail, but basically Loki isn’t close to being himself or any kind of Trickster god in this movie.
SPOILERS BELOW
1. Loki gets punked by Thor
One of the first scenes in the movie, right after Thor defeats Surtur, is him grabbing Loki and threatening to kill him by throwing Mjolnir (Thor’s hammer) and holding Loki’s face in front of his hand as he calls it back. This scene works to expose Loki as Odin. It doesn’t work for an in-character Loki.
The first thing Loki does when he sees Thor is curse in frustration. That alone, is un-Loki like. He saw Thor as Odin before and did a perfect job of acting to make Thor leave and go back to Midgard/Earth. We saw this in Thor 2. We also saw in both Thor and Thor 2, and even The Avengers, that Loki is NOT scared of Thor in any way.
Another thing to consider is that Loki is on Asgard, where the Tesseract lays. Why would he not have it on him, if he thought Thor’s return could so easily usurp him? It doesn’t make sense either way, whether he’s scared of Thor or not (and he shouldn’t be).
Finally we’ve seen him phase through objects, and Mjolnir should be no different. If anything, Loki should’ve phased through the hammer and let it hit Thor. It’d still expose him (as Odin can’t phase and would simply stop Mjolnir) and still maintain his dignity.
2. Dr. Strange outclasses Loki completely
After Thor punks Loki, the two begin looking for Odin, as the place where Loki left him appears to be in ruin. Soon after, Loki is accosted by a portal and set to fall for 30 minutes straight, before being let out by one Stephen Strange. Loki isn’t amused (which is good) and then goes to attack the Earth-born sorcerer, but is easily dismissed.
From what we know in the comics, Loki has always been around even with Dr. Strange, if not above him. His magic is rival to the likes of Dormammu, and Doom, two people who are very close to Strange, if not more powerful. There’s no way this happens to an actual in-character Loki.
Even in the MCU, Loki has shown great magic, such as sealing Odin’s power and turning people into animals, and he’s shown to seemingly teleport. It doesn’t make sense for someone as experienced and practiced as Loki is, to be trapped so easily; especially if he can teleport.
3. Loki and Hela’s first encounter
The encounter starts off fine, with Loki ready to fight and even strike an agreement. What isn’t fine is Loki taking a blow to his pride in stride when Hela tells him to kneel. Loki would normally be ready to fight and/or kill someone with the audacity to tell him to kneel.
Loki also is wildly out of character when he calls to be taken to Asgard with Thor. As said before, Loki would want to fight, and if given proper respect, would put up a decent fight against anyone. Further more, Loki would definitely wait for Thor to engage before traveling back himself, if he wanted to leave. And given that he’s the master of illusions, he’d likely never be there at all, or at least would use an illusion to cover his mistake.
Also to be noted, Loki is supposed to know secret passages that bypass the Bifrost. And again, he should be ale to teleport or do something like it. There’s no reason he wouldn’t leave an illusion and go back to Asgard in that manner.
4. Loki is scared of the Hulk
As said before, Loki is not scared of Thor, who is arguably stronger than Hulk, with more abilities. Loki is also the type of being that would be vindictive, angry, the type to thirst for vengeance, rather than be scared of someone who bested him. Not to mention he lost to Hulk due to not using ANY of his abilities, and it just makes no sense all around. The true Loki would never be scared of anyone, especially not a nearly mindless beast like The Hulk.
5. Loki loses to Valkyrie
One thing Loki usually has going for him, beyond even his magic, is that he’s second to Thor in physical prowess and skill in all of Asgard (barring Odin). Even in Avengers, Loki has shown to give Thor a decent fight before being overpowered. So Loki losing to Valkyrie seems to be, once again, a gross underestimation of his abilities.
Furthermore, Loki has magic. At the very least, illusions. He’s used illusions to fool Thor into thinking him dead, and has killed Frost Giants with them. He is quite literally the master of illusions, and yet uses nothing in this fight. It’s even worse when it’s actually him being tied up, and not an illusion, something that even Thor thinks to be true in this very movie (since he knows his brother).
6. Loki is tricked by Thor
Loki’s always been the smart brother, the trickster, the schemer, while Thor is the brute. Apparently, Thor has stolen even that from him as when they escape Sakaar, Thor easily tricks Loki and leaves him shocked and incapacitated with wit alone. He even sees Loki make his illusion/clone and calls it ‘predictable’. It’s a cute moment, but we all know that Loki would most definitely be the one outsmarting Thor.
And if we use comics Loki, he’s always been…less affected by technology than Thor, and it’s likely the obedience disk would have little-to-no effect and that he could disable it with magic or phase through it, if it did.
All around, just a bad showing for Loki.
As shown, Loki isn’t truly Loki in Thor: Ragnarok, but a caricature, a dumb trickster god, a master of illusions that doesn’t use them, a sorcerer who’s easily bested, and a fighter that’s easily beat. Instead of a true villain and powerful sorcerer, he’s instead the butt of every joke.
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