Loki

I love Loki. I hate this show. I kinda love this show. I hate this show. Unfortunately this is going to be an entire essay. Don’t even bother reading I just had to put it somewhere To start us positive, as a whole, I absolutely adored the production design of the whole show, the TVA, lamentis, the void, the citadel, beautiful beautiful design work. Such food for creative thought. Natalie Holt’s composition work also gifted us some powerfully intricate music. The first two episodes were an absolute gold star with really intriguing character analysis, pacing, and setting up this new storyworld. I really loved the way they had a scene in ravonnas office twice in ep 2 which showed the development of loki and mobius’ trust and I love the story possibilities the TVA creates. I think we got to see a really authentic loki who was freed of the expectations of Odin and asgardian pre-destination and was responding to that by being his unbridled playful self. Loved it. Ep 3. Sylvie comes in and the pacing of this episode really slows down and allows us to observe character relationships. My observations were that we’re going to have Loki experience a foil to his relationship with Thor and have a healthy sibling relationship with Sylvie. The single-take style of the ending was really great too. In a blink-and-you-miss-it line, marvel confirmed Loki as their first openly bi character. While I appreciate the representation it also came across as Disney seeking empty applause, as afterwards the mantle of heteronormativity is reassumed. In ep 4 the pace rapidly picks up which is fine but we end up being TOLD things about the characters that we have not previously seen. 1.Loki and sylvie have known each for a day, are the same person, and now we are told they are in love. Number one, incest? But number two, where did it even come from? 2.This episode also pushes that loki is apparently a narcissist, which despite the intense character analysis we went through in ep1, we are supposed to take as fact and also explanation for why he would ‘fall in love with himself’. I believe this analysis of his character is totally wrong or at most shallow and creates a lot of issues for the show. The intent of the scene in the time loop was to force loki to face the motivations and consequences of his actions. He had cut off Sif’s hair after they had slept together because he’s terrified of emotional vulnerability and was doing something to provoke her to push her away. Not because he’s cold and narcissistic. Loki has a facade of vanity to cover how deep his self hatred goes, he’s an individual with quite broken motivations to protect himself through self-isolation which ultimately is self-sabotage. The shunning and lack of understanding from his society has funnelled him into the role of the villain, further perpetuating his self destructive behaviour. He shows grief and remorse for his actions throughout the MCU and if he did have NPD he would not be such a tragic and sympathetic character. Ep 5. This episode was really fun and I loved the variants but it also really drove home another erasure of a key part of loki’s identity. Loki’s genderfluidity is not ‘new’ and has been openly included in multiple comics incl. agent of asgard, squirrel girl, loki 2019 and in the novel ‘where mischief lies’. It’s also a key part of Norse deity loki’s identity making loki likely one of the first trans figures in history. This episode not only features soley masculine presenting variants but also objects to the existence of feminine presenting variants. This is highlighted in the lines “have any of you ever met a female variant of us?” with the response “that would be terrifying”, a transphobic joke with misogynistic undertones, spectacular. This is another of the key issues with the show as it’s misrepresentation has actively hurt the community and created many misconceptions as it actually claimed to represent genderfluidity before premiere, and celebrated itself when sharing a tiny screenshot of loki’s TVA file reading ‘sex-fluid’, a literal inaccuracy which could’ve been avoided with any consultant on set. Ep 6. The episode did not have your traditional marvel action packed ending which I actually thought was quite interesting. There was a lot of room for moral rumination and Johnathan Majors as Kang brought an amazing energy to the episode. Tom and Sophie were good as a comedic duo throughout the season but really did not have great romantic chemistry, it felt forced, awkward and childish but not in an endearing way. The kiss I’m not even going to bother writing about. Yikes. some other points: Another thing that has happened during this season was that our main Loki started to become a supporting character rather than the protagonist. He was not making the choices driving the plot, sylvie was, and yet, her character depth was neglected. Loki essentially becomes a passive character, who follows, and Sylvie is the active one, making choices which affect and drive the plot forward. It confuses us as Loki is clearly our protagonist and we are neglected or at least have very little opportunity to understand Sylvie more deeply, which we want to if she is our active character. My final thoughts I’ve been trying to wrangle my feelings about the loki show since it came out, almost a year ago now. I’ve come to the conclusion that the issues with the show are complex and quite personal to me and my community, yet able to go unnoticed by the casual cis-het viewer. The issues lie within the writing of the series by Michael Waldron who thankfully (THANKFULLY) is no longer writing season 2. In online spaces I have already seen the damaging impacts the misconceptions created by this show and due to the enormous reach of the show (marvel, Disney, literally won peoples choice for THE show of 2021) it needs to do better. but hey, it’s fucking marvel :/