IIRC, Ragnarok's director also made a movie about a little boy in the Hitler Youth, who through Hitler was his best friend. 🤦♂️ I'm not sure where the man developed storytelling skills or common sense, which I'm not even sure he possesses.
Exactly, Caroline. Why wasn't Loki executed after Thor or Avengers 1? You can tell me, "Oh, we have to keep him alive to betray everyone at Ragnarok, but I don't buy that." He never sought redemption. He just didn't want someone else blowing up the world. No arc for Loki, no reason for his continued existence, let alone freedom. Do a Han Solo on him and stick that trickster in a block of carbonite. 😁
In the case of Loki, it makes credible sense that Frigga imploring Odin spare him would lead the All-Father to allow him to live - not for Loki's sake, but for love of Frigga. Frigga is obviously hoping that she can save her son's soul as well as his life, and thus, at her intercession, Odin would believably not execute Loki. So in that case, Loki living to be a Problem down the line makes sense.
That being said, his Arc of Redemption that Wasn't in Ragnarok is a travesty on many levels: He never repents of trying to destroy Jotunnheim, never repents of killing people willy-nilly on Earth, never shows remorse for mind-controlling Hawkeye into murdering his own people and threatening to have him murder his best friend "slowly, intimately, in every way he knows [she] fears," has no compunction about stealing the Asgardian throne by trickery, and he has no remorse for letting the Dark Elves into Asgard. The ONLY things he regrets are Frigga's murder and *maybe* hurting Thor. Maybe.
That is not a redemption arc, as you rightly point out. It's "the fangirls love him, okay, we'll just make him a good guy, they'll eat it up!" And unfortunately, people did. Loki should have had to *work for* any kind of redemption, but Ragnarok and Infinity War skipped over that.
Among the many missed opportunities and outright abusive mishandling of the characters in Ragnarok, *that* ranks among the worst. It is one of the three or four primary reasons I do not like Ragnarok and will never recommend it to anyone. To paraphrase Edna St. Vincent Millay, I know why they did it, but I do not approve - and I am not resigned.
Sometimes the villain is, indeed, misunderstood. I have seen it done successfully three ways:
1. The villain was indeed a villain, but less evil than it looks at first. Repentance is still necessary.
2. There is a villain behind the villain who is the one really at fault. (Can combine with 1 but is not necessary.) Usually, of course, the front villain and the heroes gang up on the Big Bad.
3. The hero is culpable for not understanding. This one can not occur at the climax, because the hero has to grow from it.
Number two covers Raven, really. Number one would probably fit Rosso and Viola closely. Reese is likely covered by a combination of one and two. Both Raven and Reese were unquestionably bad but had much worse villains behind them, while Rosso and Viola weren't that evil to start with, though they did evil and needed to repent of it.
Raven and Reese went all out in their evil. They had much higher prices to pay than Rosso and Viola for that reason. Although they weren't the ultimate big bads and did help the heroes gang up on the major villain, they needed to repent and then do penance. It was a doozy for the two of them...
IIRC, Ragnarok's director also made a movie about a little boy in the Hitler Youth, who through Hitler was his best friend. 🤦♂️ I'm not sure where the man developed storytelling skills or common sense, which I'm not even sure he possesses.
Exactly, Caroline. Why wasn't Loki executed after Thor or Avengers 1? You can tell me, "Oh, we have to keep him alive to betray everyone at Ragnarok, but I don't buy that." He never sought redemption. He just didn't want someone else blowing up the world. No arc for Loki, no reason for his continued existence, let alone freedom. Do a Han Solo on him and stick that trickster in a block of carbonite. 😁
In the case of Loki, it makes credible sense that Frigga imploring Odin spare him would lead the All-Father to allow him to live - not for Loki's sake, but for love of Frigga. Frigga is obviously hoping that she can save her son's soul as well as his life, and thus, at her intercession, Odin would believably not execute Loki. So in that case, Loki living to be a Problem down the line makes sense.
That being said, his Arc of Redemption that Wasn't in Ragnarok is a travesty on many levels: He never repents of trying to destroy Jotunnheim, never repents of killing people willy-nilly on Earth, never shows remorse for mind-controlling Hawkeye into murdering his own people and threatening to have him murder his best friend "slowly, intimately, in every way he knows [she] fears," has no compunction about stealing the Asgardian throne by trickery, and he has no remorse for letting the Dark Elves into Asgard. The ONLY things he regrets are Frigga's murder and *maybe* hurting Thor. Maybe.
That is not a redemption arc, as you rightly point out. It's "the fangirls love him, okay, we'll just make him a good guy, they'll eat it up!" And unfortunately, people did. Loki should have had to *work for* any kind of redemption, but Ragnarok and Infinity War skipped over that.
Among the many missed opportunities and outright abusive mishandling of the characters in Ragnarok, *that* ranks among the worst. It is one of the three or four primary reasons I do not like Ragnarok and will never recommend it to anyone. To paraphrase Edna St. Vincent Millay, I know why they did it, but I do not approve - and I am not resigned.
Sometimes the villain is, indeed, misunderstood. I have seen it done successfully three ways:
1. The villain was indeed a villain, but less evil than it looks at first. Repentance is still necessary.
2. There is a villain behind the villain who is the one really at fault. (Can combine with 1 but is not necessary.) Usually, of course, the front villain and the heroes gang up on the Big Bad.
3. The hero is culpable for not understanding. This one can not occur at the climax, because the hero has to grow from it.
Number two covers Raven, really. Number one would probably fit Rosso and Viola closely. Reese is likely covered by a combination of one and two. Both Raven and Reese were unquestionably bad but had much worse villains behind them, while Rosso and Viola weren't that evil to start with, though they did evil and needed to repent of it.
Raven and Reese went all out in their evil. They had much higher prices to pay than Rosso and Viola for that reason. Although they weren't the ultimate big bads and did help the heroes gang up on the major villain, they needed to repent and then do penance. It was a doozy for the two of them...
...but it was worth it.
Great analysis.
Thanks!
Well written and an angle I haven't considered before, re: Redemption , life and death. Bravo!
Thank you!