Long and Rambling Notes on TDW: Jessica Pontificates

[borderline_mary]

So I'm back from basically nowhere! Mostly for you, Anne. I like you. Also I feel like you might discuss all the below stuff with me, because.

Disclaimer: I liked this movie. The first big chunk of stuff below makes it look like I hated it, but I’m just getting the bad stuff out of the way first.

Comments

[silent_lorelei]

OKAY SO THOR

[silent_lorelei]

One of the reasons I really enjoyed this movie so much, despite its manifold problems, is because it's a beautiful portrait of what can happen to children - even adult children - thanks to the actions of their parents, and how the same disaster or heartbreak can affect different people in wildly different ways. Thor has always been the beloved perfect son of Asgard, praised and promoted and relied on, and Loki has always been the misfit difficult orphaned black sheep of the family, disliked and mocked and misunderstood, and they are both (possibly irreparably) broken

[silent_lorelei]

Also, thank god for this movie's return to the relationship between Thor and Loki, which finally reaffirmed their obvious and unbreakable love for one another. Avengers was a lot of fun, but it failed pretty hardcore in that area, despite Hiddleston's best efforts (which we can probably blame Whedon for most of the time - I remember him being quoted as saying that he wanted Loki to be much more of a straight villain because sympathizing him too much was confusing the audience). And Avengers wasn't really about them anyway - Loki was the main villain, but it was really a story about earth and the mortal heroes on it fighting the alien menace of the Chitauri, with Thor and Loki as side characters in between. Loki was barely there for most of it, fighting a battle he clearly didn't care much about winning; it was more of a stage performance he was giving and an outward expression of his spiral into nihilism than anything he actually cared about. The Loki of that time period had pretty much forgotten how to care about things

[borderline_mary]

I didn't know that about the novelizations (there were going to be novelizations really?). Seriously it's like when video games get put out before they're actually done, except you can patch those. Agreed totally on Midgard; I think they basically only had it happen there because someone had the biggest pants tent for the idea of Darcy and Selvig and The Intern using their tech to warp shit during the battle and send Mjollnir flying off in confusing extra-dimensional directions for lulz. A lot of this movie seems to be motivated by lulz, actually; there are far too many moments where we're clearly expected to laugh, even when the humor is uncomfortable or excruciatingly badly timed (which is a lot) or way-overplayed. It's so overplayed at times it's almost like slapstick

[borderline_mary]

As for whether she was actually there... I've seen others postulate that she wasn't, but I honestly lean more towards Frigga outright ignoring Odin's "you'll never see her again" because she probably knows a trick or two for not letting her husband find out. He's not on his throne all the time, and I can totally see her just telling Heimdall to keep his mouth shut, because it's not TREASON for her to visit Loki. Odin didn't so much decree it as use it to hurt Loki during his sentencing. Frigga is shown in deleted scenes for the first movie to be unable to countermand Odin's direct orders concerning Thor's banishment, but being free to argue with him in a way that suggests he doesn't really give HER orders in that sense. Not that I disagree with you about this being EXACTLY the kind of self-loathing bullshit Loki would do, to conjure up his mother just to wound himself further, but I'm leaning on that scene being genuinely Frigga. Although, given all of the above, she probably doesn't get to do it much, so it's also entirely plausible

[silent_lorelei]

I guess agree to disagree? If that is actually Frigg, I don't think she was in any way trying to make Loki choose family or aloneness with no middle ground, or even intending to imply that. I think she was just saying, "Ouch, dude," in response to something he said that probably read to her as hurtful (possibly she even thought he said it by accident - it seems like the kind of thing he'd say because he was made at Odin and realize a second later also hit her as a byproduct). And pointing out to him that even if he feels that way, she still considers herself his mother

[borderline_mary]

Last bit - I'm cool with agreeing to disagree, but that's not quite what I meant? You did make me think a lot more with your initial comment highlighting how Frigga would feel about Loki loudly disowning Odin, and I'm willing to back off on my assessment of her as deliberately manipulative; my point was more than her intentions don't make the power dynamics disappear, and she's not the sort of character I can see being totally oblivious to them. Ergo, while her feelings are valid and while I'm behind her attempting to communicate that she still considers herself his mother and even that she was hurt by what he said, I'm kind of not okay with her backing him into that corner in order to do it.

Oooooh I think I remember that story?

I'll see if I can set this up in a quote string. :D

[silent_lorelei]

Yeah, I think for me it's just that I don't believe she would have been in any way intentionally trying to put him in a corner? She's got some manipulation chops, but I don't think she'd use them on her kids, not in this here movie universe. I think it's more likely we're looking at a pretty typical parent-child painful argument - both hurting each others' feelings, not necessarily intentionally but because they're kind of mired in their own emotions despite their care for the other person. Loki feels pushed into a corner even though she wouldn't have intentionally done that to him; Frigga feels rejected even though he wouldn't have intentionally done that to her. Everyone is sad. Nickelback's "This Is How You Remind Me" plays softly in the distance. *flashbacks to teenagerhood*

Ha, it was The Self-Made Man, about Goze. Who did some pretty bad shit and legit deserved to be in jail, although thankfully he's started trying to clean up his act post-jailtime. (I can't find the LJ link for some reason? Blah.)