perpetuallycaffeinated:
I’m writing these down so I don’t forget, and posting it so I can’t forget I wrote it. To everyone who follows me who couldn’t give a shit (and to people who know the characters and canons much, MUCH better and will be rolling their eyes at this):
- From what I’ve seen in the movie!verse, Asgard is not the most progressive place, gender-wise. Sif is remarkable because she is a woman that has risen to a man’s role. As it seems to reflect the structure of our own older patriarchal ideas, there’s an opposite to Asgard’s well-humored surprise at a woman succeeding in a man’s role: it’s all well and good for the odd woman to “be a man,” because being a man is something that is to be desired. To be a man, and physically enter the role of a woman, on the other hand…
- Now look at all of the men on Asgard who are regarded as “real” men, and then look at Loki. Loki is pale, socially withdrawn, does not do battle with real weapons, but instead relies on trickery, his silver tongue, and magic.
- From the pitifully small amount of Norse know-how that I’ve got, it’s very clear that magic was women’s work; important, but still women’s work. A man that did magic degraded himself because he was associating himself with something deeply, essentially non!male. Apparently, the social taboo that was brought on by working with magic was also associated with men who took on the passive role in homosexual sex, again with the undercurrent that a man has chosen to make himself “less male.”
- If you want to back up Movie!canon with some good old mythology, the fact that Loki turned himself female and literally got knocked up a couple of times doesn’t exactly fly in the face of my line of reasoning…
- Aaaand let’s bring it back around town to the most obvious thing I could. Loki is incapable of lifting Thor’s hammer, the good old Phallic Stand-In. Even when he does wield a staff in Thor and The Avengers, they are not truly his. They are borrowed, and do not remain his for very long.
- It’s a cheap shot, but I have to write it down at some point so I’ll do it now: That helmet. Is compensating. For a god-sized insecurity about something.
- For all those Thor/Loki shippers out there (holla!), Loki’s two-sided hatred and love of Thor, even before he found out his true lineage, can be given a new angle if we assume Loki has internalized the hatred of expressing “not!male” traits. If Loki harbored any impulses that could be read as a desire for the submissive role in a homosexual partnering, Thor could be simultaneously a desired sexual partner and a despised, unwanted presence that only serves to cause Loki more unhappiness with himself.
- WARNING: This is next bit is a bit of an Avengers spoiler, and it’s actually the scene that got me thinking about this. There was something floating around on Tumblr where Hiddleston was reflecting on the fact that hatred and the desire to drag something down beneath your level can only be a sign of some self-hatred. And when I went back to see The Avengers again, I noticed…
- Out of all the Avengers that he interacts with, Loki is absolutely vicious towards Natasha. In the infamous scene, Natasha is able to manipulate him so skillfully in part because Loki reacts to her presence on a snarling, knee-jerk, emotional level. Natasha is a woman on a team of super-powerful men. She is the Loki of the group, forever underestimated because of her lack of godly superpowers, swaggering bravado or rippling muscles. Loki’s hatred and bile that he launches at Natasha could be seen as a hatred and rejection of self.
- However, and yay for Black Widow, there’s one thing about Natasha that really keeps her from being a Loki, and which makes me kind of sort of really love her. She doesn’t seem to be bothered that she’s not!male. (Of course there might be some comic book canon that makes me super duper wrong. Welp.) Natasha was in control of that situation because she is in control of herself, and Loki very much isn’t.
Hm….I think that’s all for now. I might edit or reblog myself later when I need to change something or add to the bullet points.
