Marvel Update to Loki's Bio

[lynnenne]

Hello, friends! Welcome to your Sunday discussion post. This week's topic:

About a month ago, Marvel updated their official character bio for Loki to include this retcon:

Arriving at the Sanctuary through a wormhole caused by the Bifrost, Loki met the Other, ruler of the ancient race of extraterrestrials the Chitauri, and Thanos. Offering the God of Mischief dominion over his brother’s favorite realm Earth, Thanos requested the Tesseract in return. Gifted with a Scepter that acted as a mind control device, Loki would be able to influence others. Unbeknownst to him, the Scepter was also influencing him, fueling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth. [my emphasis]

What's your opinion on this "official" statement? How do you interpret it? Was Loki mind-controlled or merely made crankier than usual, the way Bruce was when he was holding the scepter during the big argument scene in The Avengers?

Does this change your view on Loki's character or his behavior? Is Marvel's "official" statement different from your head canon?

And why do you think they felt the need to update his MCU bio now, seven years after The Avengers was released in theatres?

Comments

[schneefink]

I would not interpret it as mind-control, I don't think it created emotions or dictated his actions, just making certain existing feelings stronger and maybe others weaker.

And why do you think they felt the need to update his MCU bio now, seven years after The Avengers was released in theatres?
This is to me the most interesting question. My theory is that they want the Mind Stone to be able to do/be something specific and they want to be able to say that this is not something new, or they realized that something they want the Mind Stone to do means it would have had certain effects on Loki as well.

[misbegotten]

And why do you think they felt the need to update his MCU bio now

I'm assuming it has to do with the upcoming Loki TV series. Presumably they want to make his attempt to take over his Earth more palatable.

I love the "crankier than usual" interpretation, though. That's going to be my head canon going forward. Hee!

[wannabedarklord]

I didn't see it as a retcon. I've always thought that was the canon. There were enough subtextual and behavioral cues in his performance to interpret it that way (enough that I thought we were supposed to interpret it that way). That said, I never thought it was full on control, and the bio doesn't say it was either. But with how messed up Loki was before and after his suicide attempt via the Void, it's no wonder he was easy prey.

As for why they felt the need to update it, probably because of the TV show, whatever that will turn out to be like.

My ultimate opinion is some variation of VINDICATION [insert Captain Holt gif here]

[olivermoss]

To me it's not a big deal. It fueled feelings and thoughts he already had. It didn't create the hatred or need to subjugate others. Simply having access to that sort of power would have influenced him a bit, even if it wasn't also casting a +1 Aura of Evil. It also makes sense that he wouldn't be immune. Even Mjolnir-worthy Thor was effected.

I don't think it makes Loki less liable for what he did.

[dhampyresa]

I thought it was already canon based on Avengers that the specter was influencing him. I don't think it was mindcontrol, though.

[dendriteblues]

Yeah I feel like it's just Marvel cleaning house and making some of the more popular fan theories official. They've been known to change their plans based on fan response (one of the reasons the franchise is still doing so well, imo.) and I think now is just a convenient time. Hell, on the first cut Loki wasn't even IN Thor II, and I suspect he was meant to be retired like other villains after A1.

Based on how Thor II ended, I feel like they had vague plans of making him a servant of Thanos in IW, and so they held off on solidifying the sympathetic aspects of his fall. But plans clearly changed between Dark World and Ragnarok, we may never know why exactly. Maybe somebody at Marvel just noticed how determined fans were to redeem him in fic/fanart and thought it would get a better response to give him a canon redemption arc? IDK, but they pretty much threw out the Loki-is-Odin plot line as quickly as they possibly could and didn't ever provide a compelling reason why Loki did it. So I would say plans changed for him and they realized they needed to give him and Thor a chance to reconcile in Ragnarok in order to sell his "heroic death".

Not sure if that's still worthy of spoiler text, but better safe than sorry I guess. haha

[genarti]

Yeah, I'm another one who figured that was what was going on all along, or at least a strong possibility for it, so I wouldn't necessarily call it a retcon. The scepter influenced the Avengers just through proximity -- implied to include Thor, so it's not just the humans -- and Loki was out there carrying it around and so on, and canon neither says nor implies that he's immune to its effect.

I also figured that he was very possibly messed up by an unknown amount of time plummeting through the void of space, by some kind of torture/solitary confinement/etc from Thanos, or a combination, what with the dark circles under his eyes and the brittleness and all that. So I didn't think it was necessarily just the Scepter. And this bio doesn't actually rule that out, though it does strongly imply that the Scepter was the main thing messing with his head. I still like it being a combination of things, but I don't actually object to this.

The bigger question, I agree, is about the timing of updating his MCU bio with this now, and not having had it part of that before. I suspect that it's a combination of 1) the upcoming tv show, and 2) Thor: Ragnarok, in that they have newly strengthened reason to want to officially distance Loki from the more murderously authoritarian HUMANS CRAVE SUBJUGATION version of him we got in Avengers to make him as sympathetic as possible. While I think anything that has him be on Earth for any length of time is going to have to address those actions (and that body count) to some degree, and I hope they don't go the route of "so he's definitely innocent and it doesn't matter, ha ha let us never speak of this again" -- he's not innocent, and it does matter -- I'm all in favor of that distancing, rather than "oh that was Loki in his right mind, but anyway he and Thor are friends now so it's fine!"

[lazaefair]

Imagine if Marvel retconned Black Panther to say that Killmonger was being mind-controlled all along.

Because moral complexity and the struggle between impact and intent, the many possible creative variations on the "cool story, still murder" trope, the uncomfortable examination of feeling genuine sympathy for villains without glossing over the harmful consequences of their actions, are all for chumps, I guess. The pretty white man can't possibly have done anything bad in his life. He and Kylo Ren should go drinking together.

And I like Loki and Tom Hiddleston's portrayal of him. Very much. Both he and Chris Hemsworth have made valiant and enjoyable efforts to inject emotional continuity into characters that have undergone unusually high amounts of narrative nonsense even by comic book movie standards. And I liked his character evolution in Ragnarok. But this retcon is just creative cowardice. It's simply not necessary.

Agreed that the Loki TV show and fan popularity are big factors in this change (he wasn't the first and won't be the last bad boy who gets Flanderized into the slightly edgy but significantly cuddlier member of the good boy's treehouse club) but I'd also venture to guess that Marvel is trying to distance itself from Joss Whedon and anything he had to do with the story. It does feel sometimes like every MCU film after Ultron has been indirectly trying to apologize for/repudiate Ultron, and in most things I'd agree with that direction. Just not this one.

[glitteryv]

I saw it as a weak retcon to sort of nullify the general characterization of Loki as a villain that most people (both in and outside of the fandom) have. Mostly because I saw a flurry of Loki's uber fans saying "See? He was a victim!!!!!1111!!" which made me eyeroll. FTR, I don't mind a Loki whose loyalties and ability to be "good" are mutable.

Thankfully, I often see canon as a suggestion so this 'explanation' to Loki's role in the first Avengers movie doesn't handwave my own headcanon. Which, again, it's more of a Loki who is morally grey (though probably good if it's really beneficial to him.)

No idea why they opted to retcon the F out of him update his bio. Maybe to pave the way for the upcoming Loki miniseries in the Disney+? No idea if it has anything to do with Endgame (I'm trying to steer clear of most spoilers/spoiler-y discussions about that movie). But, in the end, it felt like an unnecessary movie from Marvel (imo, at least)