Loki Feels or, Why Odin is a Horrible Father.
Pictured Above: Bad Parenting Skills
I’m obviously biased toward Loki, seeing as I want to ride him like a Harley, but let’s take a moment to appreciate just how bad of a father Odin is. I mean really, he’s almost comically awful (no pun intended) at this whole parenting thing.
I’ll start out with the scene with Young!Loki and Young!Thor. This is what we call a “teachable moment”. Here you have Loki, asking an innocent question of “Do the Frost Giants still live?”, and then you have Thor, going “BLARGH, KILL THE BEASTS, BLARGH.” Instead of saying yes, the Frost Giants still live in their own world and we are no longer at war with them and they are not monsters, Odin chuckles at Thor’s desire to slay the “monsters” and pats him on the head. Okay yeah, that’s cool. Your adoptive SON is a Frost Giant, but let’s just go ahead and let Thor think that they’re all monsters in need of slaying. Surely there won’t be any negative repercussions down the road of encouraging Thor’s war-mongering, right?
Pictured Above: Negative repercussions of encouraging Thor’s war-mongering
Throughout Thor, everyone’s pretty damn racist toward the Frost Giants. By the end of the film Loki is convinced that the appropriate course of action is mass genocide, taking his daddy issues to an all new low. Thor (pre-banishment) is convinced that the appropriate course of action is mass genocide. And where did Thor and Loki learn to refer to the Frost Giants as “monsters”? Well, probably from Odin. During the pivotal weapons vault scene, Loki screams at Odin that “No matter how much you claimed to love me, you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the throne of Asgard.” So he’s a self-hating Frost Giant wrapped in a ball of angst and tied up with a big bow of inferiority. Great.
This racism (or specis-ism, whatever you want to call it) also extends to Midgard. By the Avengers movie, people notice the fact that Loki goes on and on about subjugating the weak/pathetic/stupid humans, but even Thor states to the Avengers that “You people are so petty. And tiny.” Odin doesn’t come down from on high to stop Loki from subjugating the human race, he just throws Thor in the mix like “Eh, close enough. This’ll probably work.” Yet again, I blame Odin for much of this. And I love how he thought that he should come down and save our asses but that we could probably take care of ourselves after that first time he saved the Vikings. I mean, humans and Asgardians are similar enough to breed, but it’s probably for the best if Midgardians left to our own devices and Asgard remains a paradise. Sure.
In terms of politics and situational issues, Odin states that Loki was abandoned as a baby…so what was the plan to “unite the realms and bring about permanent peace”? Show up and go “Hey Laufey, here’s your kid back, I know you didn’t really want him and all, but we slapped a coat of paint on him and he’s been living with us for awhile.” Um, okay. That’ll probably go over REALLY well. (I’m assuming that Laufey didn’t know Loki was his son by the events of Thor.) Also in the weapons vault, Odin’s all “You’re my son!” and Loki seems terribly pissed about it. Yeah, you would be too if your “dad” had lied to you and had gone along with the people who said your whole race was made of primitive monsters.
Pictured above: I mean, how can you even stand to look at him? Ugh, Frost Giants.
The real kicker for me is that Odin throws in talking points like how Loki was small for a giant’s offspring. So let’s get this straight. In about four sentences, Loki has been told that he:
- is Laufey’s son, which would make him the heir to the throne had he not been taken
- was abandoned by his parents
- is small for a Frost Giant (which has NO RELEVANCE WHATSOEVER, ODIN)
- was taken as part of some political ploy
- could have been spared an inferiority complex/not knowing why he was “different” had Odin only told him earlier
My final point in this rambling, not-very-structured argument is that whole thing with Loki and Thor hanging off of the end of the staff. Loki’s all “I could have killed my entire race for you because I desperately need your approval!” The only thing Odin says is “No, Loki”.
I don’t really know how he meant those two words. Maybe he meant “Don’t let go of the staff, you suicidal fruit” or maybe he meant “Mass genocide is not the answer, Loki” but either way, I think Odin could have come up with something better than “No, Loki” to get his adopted son to hang on. Even “You’re my son and you don’t have to prove yourself to me” or SOMETHING. Jeez.
