Loki of Sassgaard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lokiofsassgaard) wrote2021-03-05 12:23 am
lokiofsassgaard) wrote2021-03-05 12:23 am
References, Inspiration, and Callbacks for Loki Annoys the Marvel Universe
This is going up as a "chapter note" for chapter 10, but it really has nothing to do with the chapter itself. I just had nothing to say about that chapter that hadn't already been said. So this felt like a good moment to take the time to discuss where I got a lot of the stuff in this series.
So, I haven't actually much to say about this chapter. And since there's been but a fish's breath whisper of a reveal, I want to take this moment to talk about where a lot of stuff actually comes from in this series. Because something hilarious and wonderful happened. This entire series became almost canon compliant in the most ridiculous way and I love it.
Let's look at the series start date. August 19, 2012.
Journey into Mystery was still going. Ikol had not yet stolen Loki's name and body for himself.
I wanted to play with this young Loki, and all his manic energy in the context of the MCU. The little boy, who within hours of returning to Asgard, whips Odin into a rage with a single sentence, and then steals a car. This ridiculous little boy, with his love for Midgard and memes, funny animal companions, and the ability to make friends and keep them just long enough to give him hope before he somehow pisses them off. This funny little version of Loki who didn't know what to do with all these weird feelings when he saw Daimon shirtless. This version of Loki who was a shitlord in training, aware of his heritage and role within the universe, who loves his brother very much, but occasionally feels that perhaps he might benefit from a brick to the face.
I extrapolated a lot from this. Aged him up to his early-20s, sent him out on adventures, and allowed him to fall in love with Midgard in a way Thor never did, embracing all the petty, material folly that makes humans what they are. Oh. And now that is precisely the Loki we have in canon and I love it.
A lot also came from Straczynski's run, in the lead-up to Siege. Though not for characterisation, but worldbuilding. Some of the earliest descriptions of Loki's physical appearance came from this, mixed up and blended with the way MCU frost giants look. The black fingernails, the black marks that come from behind his ears in a way that suggests horns. Except I've also inverted it. Because he's drawn a bit lighter in tone than Laufey.
In fact, when you see him out in the sun, he's downright pink. This is obviously not Odin's doing (word of god for the MCU has Loki's appearance being the result of some sort of Odin magic). He is so distinctly different from the other frost giants even without being small. Almost as if he's some kind of funny halfbreed.
And this is why the soldiers and lords and jarls with Jötunn brides don't have sons who get bullied and beaten up. Because these little boys can blend in. The daughters, though not really discussed for being outside of Loki's own context, blend in as well, appearing just foreign enough to be desirable brides. There are some secret hidden rules I've devised for how halfbreeds "work," and what makes Loki different from all the others. And it basically comes down to who the father is. In a world of magical beings, I figure we can throw genetics out the window a little bit.
I also really wanted the horns. I've said elsewhere that I like symmetry with these things, and since the fire giants are drawn with horns, it seems weird to me that the frost giants are not. The fire giants are also drawn with tails. And do you know what other popular comic book character has red skin, horns, and a tail?
And I just loved the way he was portrayed by Ron Perlman. Especially those horns. Look at them, like spicy snakes poised to strike. Uff.
This is how my fire giants more or less look, as established by Midgard Legends. That was a sublte little thing that I'm very glad people picked up on. But I didn't want the giants to just be red/blue coded, so both Marvel fire giants and Hellboy having these big, massive prehensile tails falls into this perfectly. They are a different race, with different physical characteristics. In the film, Red had horns as an infant. Loki's cut later in life. And I know that the fanon for Loki having horns does seem to kind of come out of aesthetics, but there is good reason to believe he should have horns.
Do those little markings on this gross Doom clone's head look familiar? There's an issue of Fantastic Four somewhere, and I can never remember which one it is, where Doom has created an entire army of these disgusting things, all weirdly mutated and wrong for reasons I cannot remember. But a consistency between them was that they all had horns. It's just annoying that it doesn't jive with how frost giants are drawn. But whatever. Let's say frost giants do, because Loki does, and he's a frost giant. Or supposed to be.
But I have taken Loki in a slightly different direction from all this. Which only begs the question, who is Loki's mother? And why does everyone in Hvítá seem to know, or at least have a vague idea? Because here he is in a What If. He is a darker, if less saturated shade of blue than the dead guard behind him. But when I say recent, this one was released in 2018. Well after I established all of this in TWHM. He still has no horns, nor do any of his frost giant bretheren, but whatever. Marvel is inconsistent at the best of times.
Loki being a halfbreed didn't come out of nowhere either. It's often speculated that he MUST be in 616, but it almost never actually gets discussed at all. He's just "born small" whatever that means. And I hate it. But there is Ultimates, which is just overall a heap of garbage. But in Ultimates, there is actual real background for who and what he is.
He's a halfbreed. And they know it. And more than that, his mother is not Jötunn. If anything, she seems to be some sort of war bride, which is an idea Frigga has tossed around earlier in this fic.
So, who is Loki's mother? The answer is in the comics, though not Ultimates, because Ultimates is trash. It's also stated as fact two or three times in Those Who Hunt Monsters. I'm not going to state it outright here, for those who are still puzzling it out, but it shan't come from nowhere. Reveals that come from nowhere are the worst sort. This one will obvious as day once it is revealed to Loki properly.
So he's got half of a reveal. He's got some context, which is so meaningless to him, he spent not even two seconds to dwell on it. He will later though, and he will know as much of the full truth as it will be possible for him to know by the end of this fic.
But there's a greater context Loki still lacks, because he has once again been fed a lie and accepted it as straight truth. And this one came from the MCU. Because this isn't just comic Loki fucking about. This is comic Loki fucking about within the MCU. Except it kind of doesn't have anything at all to do with the MCU at all. Because this truth didn't happen in the MCU until after I started working on Midgard Legends, well after I'd finished TWHM and set up this mystery. I made some bullshit up, extrapolated from some arc I can't remember (probably during Fraction's run; that's where all the really bizarre stuff came from), and then Feige apparently came up with the same bullshit reasoning and ran with it as well. So maybe it wasn't as bullshity and ridiculous as I thought it was. I thought I was being kind of silly and stupid, but now it's just canon. Whoops.
Another thing I've taken from the comics is Loki's use of a bow, which is just absolutely nowhere in the MCU. But he heavily favours one in Ultimates, and often is shown having one in flashback sequences in 616. The fact that the MCU gave him throwing knives, and with another one of his preferred weapons in the comics in a whip, I liked the idea of him favouring ranged combat overall.
Something that will keep his enemies farther away than the length of a sword. But he also definitely favours a sword as well, and that's not something I wanted to take away from him. In fact, in TWHM, he even got to have a little bit of angst over wanting to be better with one than he was. This has changed by this point in the story, and is something I would very much like to play with more. But lately he's been playing more with guns and bows instead. Which, uh.
I want this work of art on my wall.
Another fairly random detail that didn't come from nowhere is Loki being afraid of water. Admittedly, this detail came from some really weird Silver Age worldbuilding, in which Loki's magic just doesn't work when he's wet. Thor says this comes from legend, but I don't fucking know what he's talking about. Maybe it does and I've just forgotten where it came from. Or maybe Stan Lee was just making shit up.
But I liked the potential for this. I felt like he needed a couple of internal obstacles -- something that would occasionally present problems for him without being something born of strife or conflict. He's supposed to be 6'4" and 525lbs in the comics. There's no way he can swim with those stats. Dude sinks like a rock. And it can still come back round to his magic not working when he's wet, because if he is actively drowning, he's probably panicking and not thinking about how to turn himself into a fish.
In fact, I think the only thing I mostly made up was Loki being left-handed. There is nothing anywhere in the comics to back this up, but it was one of those things that seemed like a good detail; something he would obstanantly refuse to even attempt to change, no matter how much of a pain in the ass being left-handed is. In fact, I got this one from Avengers 1, and it comes entirely from the choreography when Loki uses the sceptre to boost his magic. He holds it with his right hand, and casts with his left. It's feeble, but I liked it enough to just completely riff off of. But that too is something he will be actually addressing at some point as well, because let's be real. Being left-handed is a constant ballache. Once he gets back from this little adventure, he's going to need to start doing a lot of stuff that will necessitate him learning how to use his right hand.
Loki isn't the only thing to come straight from the pages though. That wolf he treats as a puppy, as big as a horse, and obviously too small to actually be Fenrisulfr? Oh, what's this? I came to really like the idea that Jötunn fauna is simply to scale. Big wolves, big reindeer, big horses, to suit a world where even its people are big.
I went with blue eyes, over red, because I didn't really like the idea of Loki having something that could be viewed as a literal demon dog. I chose the name Fenrir because of all the different spellings and kennings of that stupid wolf. Fenrir? Fenris? Fenrisulfr? Well, guess what. In the MCU he turned into a she named Fenris, so well. That kind of spoiled that a little bit. Fenrir was never going to be That Wolf. He's clearly too small, and too much of a dumb puppy. This is just Loki, being bad at names, and calling his dog "dog" in Jötunn, basically. An idea I got from JiM, where he gave the magpie his own name, backwards. Granted, there were real, logical reasons for it, but I never stopped laughing at it. And then he went and got a dog and named it Thori, so maybe Loki is just Bad At Names. But Fenrir was always a red herring, and now that's out in the open and I guess I can't be coy about it anymore.
Odin's sons were not chosen by random either, though I did use different spellings for Baldur and Viðar for pure aesthetic reasons.
But I liked Odin having four sons, and these four in particular for reasons I go into a little further below. I don't know where Baldur went in the movies. Viðar gets pretty handily ignored in the comics too, because characters that don't speak are amazingly difficult to pull off well. Of everything I've pulled directly from the myths, I think Viðar is the most blantant. There's a lot more that shows up incidentally in the background. Basically, the myths have been used to pad out things where Marvel gets a bit weird or vague. A lot of background characters and general worldbuilding come either from myths or sagas, if not directly then because I liked their name. I've kind of cobbled together a lot of stuff from a lot of sources for all of the incidentals, without really doing anything too specific for any of it.
In fact, I'm deliberately not going with the myths as much as possible because Thor 1 invalidates all of it, and I wanted to stick with that. Poor writing actually led the way for some really interesting concepts I've only really just started to play with. Loki was an infant in 945AD. He was not the God of Lies or anything else. And Thor was not the God of Thunder, if he and Loki are the same age. And Thor ain't no 1500 years old, either. Fuck off with that bullshit, Infinity War. Even if he was, he'd still be a child during the Viking age. But that's where I got the idea to make them twins; or at least, have them raised as such. With the timeline established by Thor 1, there was just no fucking way to hide Loki being a frost giant. It just wasn't going to happen, and I hate how it was presented as some big damn secret that nobody knew, without explaining at all how it was hidden. The easiest way to hide it would be to present the lie with a concrete truth. Frigga was pregnant, she had a baby, and it was a stressful and chaotic time for everyone. Why not say she had twins, and use a truth to cover a lie?
Thor 1 gave us a very concrete date and timeline, which was stupid and pointless and completely broke all of the mytholgy. That's why there are two Lokis in this. The one you are reading about, and the psychopath he was named for. And this is another thing I established before Agent of Asgard played with the same concept, with Loki going back in time to be a thorn in Odin's side.
I got this idea from the same place Loki gets his fear of birds. When he met Hogun for the first time, he was terrified of that eagle, and he did not know why. Later on, on Jötunheimr, Volstagg mentions giant eagles that would carry men off. That came from a myth, in which Loki and Odin were camping on Jötunheimr, and Loki was carried off by a giant eagle. (The eagle turned out to be a frost giant, but shh.) I like the concept of genetic knowledge, with Loki responding to birds the same way someone who has never left the city will respond to a lion's roar. Just a visceral, instinctual nope.
Before Loki became Norse Satan, he and Odin just shitlorded around the Nine. I had this idea from the very beginning that the Thor and Loki in this series were both named after people Odin used to shitlord around with, and that's where Loki gets this mad, manic streak to do the same. He heard these stories about dear old dad being a raging lunatic in his youth, and wants to do the same. And then Old Loki was executed, and Old Thor... who the fuck knows. Drowned after drinking half the sea probably. Then Odin grew up, took the throne, had kids, and named his twins after his two BFFs.
And then Ragnarok happened, and uhm. In a weird way that seems to be exactly what happened. Odin plastered over all the horrible, stupid shit he used to do and pretends to be this regal old fart instead. So that's cool. I have plans for that whole thing too, because it fits perfectly into this narrative I've already established by having Loki not be the one he's supposed to be. I don't think it would be too much of a spoiler to say that Hela is Loki's daughter. Just not the Loki you're reading about. And I can do that and still keep it perfectly in line and compliant with what Ragnarok presented.
You'll also notice I am very inconsistent with my spelling in general. I use some of the Old Norse, Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, and English spellings, all randomly cobbled together. Sometimes it's picked again on aesthetics, sometimes for certain consistencies. The use of Jötun, Jötuns, Jötunn, and Jötnar is probably the most obvious one, because especially right now, you're seeing those words a lot. This is just the noun and adjective forms, in singular and plural. In the very first drafts of Those Who Hunt Monsters, I did the same with Æsir and all its conjugations. But ultimately threw it out and mostly replaced it with Asgardian because that's what canon does. On Asgard, it felt distracting.
Another thing I've been very careful about doing is how different races are described by other characters. It was established pretty early on that "frost giant" is more of a slur than anything. Same with "orc." Polite society uses Jötunn, Dökkálfar, etc. Elf sits in this middle ground, where Álfar is preferred, but "elf" is used pretty liberally. Mainly because Loki has not yet interacted with any of them, really. That said, Thor and Loki both throw "orc" around like they don't care. It's this little bit of inconsistency and hypocrisy that I really like with Loki's character, because it keeps him off that high horse for the most part. It's like in Midwinter, when he chastised Thor for stealing from a vendor, only to be shut down because he's known for being a thieving bitch himself.
There's a plot I badly want to play with, but cannot find a good place to fit it in where Loki loses his Alltongue. Because I want to explore the Asgardian language more, and force Loki to learn English properly and become literate in it. In my mind, it isn't and wouldn't be Old Norse. It would be similar, but not the same. And I think the way in which it would be similar, but not the same, is the same way Norwegian is similar, but not the same as Danish. I just really love the idea that the language of the gods sounds a bit like someone code switching between Faroese and Old Norse around a mouth full of hot mashed potatoes.
So that's why the spelling is inconsistent. It's the common ancestor of Nordic languages, and what Old Norse evolved from. I wanted to kind of evoke that as much as possible by having it not tied down to any one particular set of rules.
And Loki being illiterate is something that's always bothered me, both in the comics and the MCU. Yes, he speaks this magical language that allows him to understand and be understood, but it never explains how he can write and type in English. He writes fanfic and hacks government systems. The man's obviously literate, but there aren't any rules established for how. So right now, he is illiterate in Enlgish. He can read, through the Alltongue, but he cannot write. And I need to force that upon him or he will never learn.
Another thing that came from the comics is one that has been peppered throughout Norse Marvel since Venus in the 40s, but actually got some good page time finally in Journey into Mystery. This non-interference pact, signed by all the pantheons.
I think I started working on this series around the time that arc was happening in JiM. It was such a fun idea, and one that worked very well as the crux of a lot of the plots I wanted to do. It served perfectly as a vehicle for Loki to run around on Midgard unchecked. Because let's be real, that pact has not been enforced at all from the moment it was first mentioned. But what if it were enforced? What if gods who found themselves on Earth found a wide open planet, free of cosmic law as a result, where they could do as they wished as long as they were comfortable living as a criminal? This sung to this chaotic, playful version of Loki that Journey into Mystery was giving us. What if this little boy, born centuries earlier, had a realm all to himself? How would he abuse this precious thing he has found? Or would he hoard it for himself, a secret treasure only for him to play with?
Also, I had no reason from the comics to ship Fandral/Loki. That came entirely from the way they briefly interacted in Thor 1, and my love for stupid crack ships. Fandral seemed to be the only one on Loki's side in a few scenes. Then again in TDW, he had no goddamn problem going on this wild adventure with him. Though a lot of Fandral's personality did come from the comics, especially Fraction's run of Thor. There's just something about him; some pervasive thing where he often seems like he's going out of his way to prove his straightness. I know there's a tendency to want Asgard to be above such petty intolerances, but there's plenty of backing for this sort of cultural bigotry, both toward Fandral himself and toward Loki when she wore Sif's body.
One thing that is pretty clear, if you look at it, is that Asgard is not a shining beacon of wealth and enlightenment within the cosmos. Odin is a tribal king in some relatively undeveloped backwater. They still use swords and siege tactics. What travel technology they do possess seems to be limited to local travel, or else is magical in nature. When the dark elves attacked in TDW, nobody knew what the hell to do with that ship. When Thor and Loki tried to steal one, it was pretty obviously new technology for them. They didn't know how to fly that shit. They just kind of made it up. So it makes sense to me that this fairly isolated, out of date society would have fairly isolated, outdated cultural beliefs.
And then this happened, and it's canon, and my mind will not be changed.
Also, if you read the Many Lives and Deaths of Luke Olson, I hope you got as much of a kick out of this shit as I did. I really need to go back and expand on some of these little adventures of his.
And while we're here, I do want to talk a little bit more about Odin's sons, and his legacy. I'm not sure if those names were picked deliberately in Disassembled, but these four particular sons of Odin paint a very bleak picture of his line. The comics tend to go the direction that none of Odin's children are the result of sex with whoever his wife at the moment tends to be. They're all fostered, or half-siblings, or the result of affairs. Not a single one of them is a natural child of the marriage bed. Loki is fosterd/adopted, Thor's mother is Gaea, Viðar's mother is Grid, and Baldur's mother is Frigga, who is apparently not Freyja, because Marvel is confusing as fuck. The wiki lists Freyja as his mother, but it was pretty explicitly an afffair with another woman.
I don't like this, tbh. It feels very much like an attempt to make sense of the original source material where Odin is literally the father of all the gods, but when translated to a patriarchal society where the male heir inherits all, it falls apart. I took out all of the foster and affair elements, save for Loki. And so we have Odin's four sons — itself something to celebrate. The king has four heirs. Four sons to carry his legacy. Something will have to go very poorly wrong for the line of Odin to fall apart.
First there is Loki, tecnically his eldest, but last in line. Taken as a thrall, but adopted and raised as a twin to Odin's true heir, Thor. He is the only of the four who seems to have taken any serious interest in his role, and yet spends more time in other realms than Asgard itself. As long as he is betrothed to a woman none can find, he cannot wed, and cannot produce a true heir. If Loki inherits, something has gone dreadfully wrong. For this to happen, all three of his brothers would have to die before producing their own heir.
Then there is Thor, strong and mighty and poised to one day take the throne. He is arrogant and a bully, often selfishly serving only himself. This is the son who will one day rule Asgard as a tyrant. His prospective marriage is rather unlikely at this point, with Sif shifting to ally with Loki instead of him. But as King, at least he will be able to take any bride he wants. There will likely be an heir eventually.
Then there is Baldur, second in line. The spare. Largely disinterested in his role as a result. Knows very little about what goes on in the palace, despite rarely leaving. Doesn't seem to like any of his brothers much. Doomed to die and end the world, if one chooses to believe certain interpretations of myth and prophecy. At least he hasn't completely screwed up his marriage prospects, though he's also still fairly young and hasn't yet taken his Rite.
And then, Viðar. Another embarassment. He doesn't speak, and therefore cannot take any active role. Third in line, and still a child. Were the throne to somehow fall to him, it would be chaos. Were the throne to fall to Viðar, Loki would surely rule as regent. Likely seen as slow, or unintelligent, Viðar's chances of producing an heir are slim to none.
Somehow, Odin's line is in shambles, despite having four sons. He has one who revels in enforced bachelordom, one who has severely damaged his prospects, and one who likely will not be able to wed. The best thing that can be done is install Thor on the throne early, further open his prospects, and produce an heir. He could technically have any woman on Asgard, but perhaps it would be better for him to take a bride from another realm. Though I think he'd be more likely to try to win Sif back, out of sheer stubbornness. Never mind the fact that he has completely pissed her off to the point that despite everything, she has come to trust Loki more than she does Thor.
And she still doesn't even trust Loki either. You can see that very plainly in Blood Price. He terrifies her. And he's still preferred to Thor when it comes to important matters. That's how badly Thor has fucked this up.
No matter how Odin tries, his line is forever in shambles. And this panel from Thor Season 1 is one of the only times he ever seems to admit it.
I want to do more with this when Loki returns to Asgard. Odin has his motives for what he does, and they need to be explored. Because every one of them comes back to his children, and how none of them are doing what they're supposed to. He's stuck in this really uncomfortable position where his children are largely embarassments or disappointments for various reasons, though he tries not to admit it. Somehow, none of them have been even remotely prepared to actually do the job they're supposed to be doing, despite everyone's best efforts.
Thor, destined to be king, is an entitled bully. Loki, destined to be Thor's right hand, is distrusted and despised by literally everyone who matters. Baldur, the theoretical "spare" has taken exactly zero interest in even pretending to learn what he's meant to be doing. And Viðar, who can't even speak, is barely expected to learn how to dress himself. All Odin sees is a very bleak future for Asgard unless these brats get their shit together. Which is unlikely if one's trying to start wars with other realms, another keeps fucking off to other realms every time he's presented with responsibility, and the other two are plain and simple incapable. (And King Baldur was a terrible, terrible fiasco, and even he admits it.)
Somehow, in my quest to avoid the Odin's A+ Parenting trope, I accidentally made him the most sympathetic damn character in this entire ordeal.
Which is cool, because lately he's pretty much the only person on Asgard to not only be on Loki's side, but actively seems invested in his future.
So, I haven't actually much to say about this chapter. And since there's been but a fish's breath whisper of a reveal, I want to take this moment to talk about where a lot of stuff actually comes from in this series. Because something hilarious and wonderful happened. This entire series became almost canon compliant in the most ridiculous way and I love it.
Let's look at the series start date. August 19, 2012.
Journey into Mystery was still going. Ikol had not yet stolen Loki's name and body for himself.
I wanted to play with this young Loki, and all his manic energy in the context of the MCU. The little boy, who within hours of returning to Asgard, whips Odin into a rage with a single sentence, and then steals a car. This ridiculous little boy, with his love for Midgard and memes, funny animal companions, and the ability to make friends and keep them just long enough to give him hope before he somehow pisses them off. This funny little version of Loki who didn't know what to do with all these weird feelings when he saw Daimon shirtless. This version of Loki who was a shitlord in training, aware of his heritage and role within the universe, who loves his brother very much, but occasionally feels that perhaps he might benefit from a brick to the face.
I extrapolated a lot from this. Aged him up to his early-20s, sent him out on adventures, and allowed him to fall in love with Midgard in a way Thor never did, embracing all the petty, material folly that makes humans what they are. Oh. And now that is precisely the Loki we have in canon and I love it.
A lot also came from Straczynski's run, in the lead-up to Siege. Though not for characterisation, but worldbuilding. Some of the earliest descriptions of Loki's physical appearance came from this, mixed up and blended with the way MCU frost giants look. The black fingernails, the black marks that come from behind his ears in a way that suggests horns. Except I've also inverted it. Because he's drawn a bit lighter in tone than Laufey.
In fact, when you see him out in the sun, he's downright pink. This is obviously not Odin's doing (word of god for the MCU has Loki's appearance being the result of some sort of Odin magic). He is so distinctly different from the other frost giants even without being small. Almost as if he's some kind of funny halfbreed.
And this is why the soldiers and lords and jarls with Jötunn brides don't have sons who get bullied and beaten up. Because these little boys can blend in. The daughters, though not really discussed for being outside of Loki's own context, blend in as well, appearing just foreign enough to be desirable brides. There are some secret hidden rules I've devised for how halfbreeds "work," and what makes Loki different from all the others. And it basically comes down to who the father is. In a world of magical beings, I figure we can throw genetics out the window a little bit.
I also really wanted the horns. I've said elsewhere that I like symmetry with these things, and since the fire giants are drawn with horns, it seems weird to me that the frost giants are not. The fire giants are also drawn with tails. And do you know what other popular comic book character has red skin, horns, and a tail?
And I just loved the way he was portrayed by Ron Perlman. Especially those horns. Look at them, like spicy snakes poised to strike. Uff.
This is how my fire giants more or less look, as established by Midgard Legends. That was a sublte little thing that I'm very glad people picked up on. But I didn't want the giants to just be red/blue coded, so both Marvel fire giants and Hellboy having these big, massive prehensile tails falls into this perfectly. They are a different race, with different physical characteristics. In the film, Red had horns as an infant. Loki's cut later in life. And I know that the fanon for Loki having horns does seem to kind of come out of aesthetics, but there is good reason to believe he should have horns.
Do those little markings on this gross Doom clone's head look familiar? There's an issue of Fantastic Four somewhere, and I can never remember which one it is, where Doom has created an entire army of these disgusting things, all weirdly mutated and wrong for reasons I cannot remember. But a consistency between them was that they all had horns. It's just annoying that it doesn't jive with how frost giants are drawn. But whatever. Let's say frost giants do, because Loki does, and he's a frost giant. Or supposed to be.
But I have taken Loki in a slightly different direction from all this. Which only begs the question, who is Loki's mother? And why does everyone in Hvítá seem to know, or at least have a vague idea? Because here he is in a What If. He is a darker, if less saturated shade of blue than the dead guard behind him. But when I say recent, this one was released in 2018. Well after I established all of this in TWHM. He still has no horns, nor do any of his frost giant bretheren, but whatever. Marvel is inconsistent at the best of times.
Loki being a halfbreed didn't come out of nowhere either. It's often speculated that he MUST be in 616, but it almost never actually gets discussed at all. He's just "born small" whatever that means. And I hate it. But there is Ultimates, which is just overall a heap of garbage. But in Ultimates, there is actual real background for who and what he is.
He's a halfbreed. And they know it. And more than that, his mother is not Jötunn. If anything, she seems to be some sort of war bride, which is an idea Frigga has tossed around earlier in this fic.
So, who is Loki's mother? The answer is in the comics, though not Ultimates, because Ultimates is trash. It's also stated as fact two or three times in Those Who Hunt Monsters. I'm not going to state it outright here, for those who are still puzzling it out, but it shan't come from nowhere. Reveals that come from nowhere are the worst sort. This one will obvious as day once it is revealed to Loki properly.
So he's got half of a reveal. He's got some context, which is so meaningless to him, he spent not even two seconds to dwell on it. He will later though, and he will know as much of the full truth as it will be possible for him to know by the end of this fic.
But there's a greater context Loki still lacks, because he has once again been fed a lie and accepted it as straight truth. And this one came from the MCU. Because this isn't just comic Loki fucking about. This is comic Loki fucking about within the MCU. Except it kind of doesn't have anything at all to do with the MCU at all. Because this truth didn't happen in the MCU until after I started working on Midgard Legends, well after I'd finished TWHM and set up this mystery. I made some bullshit up, extrapolated from some arc I can't remember (probably during Fraction's run; that's where all the really bizarre stuff came from), and then Feige apparently came up with the same bullshit reasoning and ran with it as well. So maybe it wasn't as bullshity and ridiculous as I thought it was. I thought I was being kind of silly and stupid, but now it's just canon. Whoops.
Another thing I've taken from the comics is Loki's use of a bow, which is just absolutely nowhere in the MCU. But he heavily favours one in Ultimates, and often is shown having one in flashback sequences in 616. The fact that the MCU gave him throwing knives, and with another one of his preferred weapons in the comics in a whip, I liked the idea of him favouring ranged combat overall.
Something that will keep his enemies farther away than the length of a sword. But he also definitely favours a sword as well, and that's not something I wanted to take away from him. In fact, in TWHM, he even got to have a little bit of angst over wanting to be better with one than he was. This has changed by this point in the story, and is something I would very much like to play with more. But lately he's been playing more with guns and bows instead. Which, uh.
I want this work of art on my wall.
Another fairly random detail that didn't come from nowhere is Loki being afraid of water. Admittedly, this detail came from some really weird Silver Age worldbuilding, in which Loki's magic just doesn't work when he's wet. Thor says this comes from legend, but I don't fucking know what he's talking about. Maybe it does and I've just forgotten where it came from. Or maybe Stan Lee was just making shit up.
But I liked the potential for this. I felt like he needed a couple of internal obstacles -- something that would occasionally present problems for him without being something born of strife or conflict. He's supposed to be 6'4" and 525lbs in the comics. There's no way he can swim with those stats. Dude sinks like a rock. And it can still come back round to his magic not working when he's wet, because if he is actively drowning, he's probably panicking and not thinking about how to turn himself into a fish.
In fact, I think the only thing I mostly made up was Loki being left-handed. There is nothing anywhere in the comics to back this up, but it was one of those things that seemed like a good detail; something he would obstanantly refuse to even attempt to change, no matter how much of a pain in the ass being left-handed is. In fact, I got this one from Avengers 1, and it comes entirely from the choreography when Loki uses the sceptre to boost his magic. He holds it with his right hand, and casts with his left. It's feeble, but I liked it enough to just completely riff off of. But that too is something he will be actually addressing at some point as well, because let's be real. Being left-handed is a constant ballache. Once he gets back from this little adventure, he's going to need to start doing a lot of stuff that will necessitate him learning how to use his right hand.
Loki isn't the only thing to come straight from the pages though. That wolf he treats as a puppy, as big as a horse, and obviously too small to actually be Fenrisulfr? Oh, what's this? I came to really like the idea that Jötunn fauna is simply to scale. Big wolves, big reindeer, big horses, to suit a world where even its people are big.
I went with blue eyes, over red, because I didn't really like the idea of Loki having something that could be viewed as a literal demon dog. I chose the name Fenrir because of all the different spellings and kennings of that stupid wolf. Fenrir? Fenris? Fenrisulfr? Well, guess what. In the MCU he turned into a she named Fenris, so well. That kind of spoiled that a little bit. Fenrir was never going to be That Wolf. He's clearly too small, and too much of a dumb puppy. This is just Loki, being bad at names, and calling his dog "dog" in Jötunn, basically. An idea I got from JiM, where he gave the magpie his own name, backwards. Granted, there were real, logical reasons for it, but I never stopped laughing at it. And then he went and got a dog and named it Thori, so maybe Loki is just Bad At Names. But Fenrir was always a red herring, and now that's out in the open and I guess I can't be coy about it anymore.
Odin's sons were not chosen by random either, though I did use different spellings for Baldur and Viðar for pure aesthetic reasons.
But I liked Odin having four sons, and these four in particular for reasons I go into a little further below. I don't know where Baldur went in the movies. Viðar gets pretty handily ignored in the comics too, because characters that don't speak are amazingly difficult to pull off well. Of everything I've pulled directly from the myths, I think Viðar is the most blantant. There's a lot more that shows up incidentally in the background. Basically, the myths have been used to pad out things where Marvel gets a bit weird or vague. A lot of background characters and general worldbuilding come either from myths or sagas, if not directly then because I liked their name. I've kind of cobbled together a lot of stuff from a lot of sources for all of the incidentals, without really doing anything too specific for any of it.
In fact, I'm deliberately not going with the myths as much as possible because Thor 1 invalidates all of it, and I wanted to stick with that. Poor writing actually led the way for some really interesting concepts I've only really just started to play with. Loki was an infant in 945AD. He was not the God of Lies or anything else. And Thor was not the God of Thunder, if he and Loki are the same age. And Thor ain't no 1500 years old, either. Fuck off with that bullshit, Infinity War. Even if he was, he'd still be a child during the Viking age. But that's where I got the idea to make them twins; or at least, have them raised as such. With the timeline established by Thor 1, there was just no fucking way to hide Loki being a frost giant. It just wasn't going to happen, and I hate how it was presented as some big damn secret that nobody knew, without explaining at all how it was hidden. The easiest way to hide it would be to present the lie with a concrete truth. Frigga was pregnant, she had a baby, and it was a stressful and chaotic time for everyone. Why not say she had twins, and use a truth to cover a lie?
Thor 1 gave us a very concrete date and timeline, which was stupid and pointless and completely broke all of the mytholgy. That's why there are two Lokis in this. The one you are reading about, and the psychopath he was named for. And this is another thing I established before Agent of Asgard played with the same concept, with Loki going back in time to be a thorn in Odin's side.
I got this idea from the same place Loki gets his fear of birds. When he met Hogun for the first time, he was terrified of that eagle, and he did not know why. Later on, on Jötunheimr, Volstagg mentions giant eagles that would carry men off. That came from a myth, in which Loki and Odin were camping on Jötunheimr, and Loki was carried off by a giant eagle. (The eagle turned out to be a frost giant, but shh.) I like the concept of genetic knowledge, with Loki responding to birds the same way someone who has never left the city will respond to a lion's roar. Just a visceral, instinctual nope.
Before Loki became Norse Satan, he and Odin just shitlorded around the Nine. I had this idea from the very beginning that the Thor and Loki in this series were both named after people Odin used to shitlord around with, and that's where Loki gets this mad, manic streak to do the same. He heard these stories about dear old dad being a raging lunatic in his youth, and wants to do the same. And then Old Loki was executed, and Old Thor... who the fuck knows. Drowned after drinking half the sea probably. Then Odin grew up, took the throne, had kids, and named his twins after his two BFFs.
And then Ragnarok happened, and uhm. In a weird way that seems to be exactly what happened. Odin plastered over all the horrible, stupid shit he used to do and pretends to be this regal old fart instead. So that's cool. I have plans for that whole thing too, because it fits perfectly into this narrative I've already established by having Loki not be the one he's supposed to be. I don't think it would be too much of a spoiler to say that Hela is Loki's daughter. Just not the Loki you're reading about. And I can do that and still keep it perfectly in line and compliant with what Ragnarok presented.
You'll also notice I am very inconsistent with my spelling in general. I use some of the Old Norse, Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, and English spellings, all randomly cobbled together. Sometimes it's picked again on aesthetics, sometimes for certain consistencies. The use of Jötun, Jötuns, Jötunn, and Jötnar is probably the most obvious one, because especially right now, you're seeing those words a lot. This is just the noun and adjective forms, in singular and plural. In the very first drafts of Those Who Hunt Monsters, I did the same with Æsir and all its conjugations. But ultimately threw it out and mostly replaced it with Asgardian because that's what canon does. On Asgard, it felt distracting.
Another thing I've been very careful about doing is how different races are described by other characters. It was established pretty early on that "frost giant" is more of a slur than anything. Same with "orc." Polite society uses Jötunn, Dökkálfar, etc. Elf sits in this middle ground, where Álfar is preferred, but "elf" is used pretty liberally. Mainly because Loki has not yet interacted with any of them, really. That said, Thor and Loki both throw "orc" around like they don't care. It's this little bit of inconsistency and hypocrisy that I really like with Loki's character, because it keeps him off that high horse for the most part. It's like in Midwinter, when he chastised Thor for stealing from a vendor, only to be shut down because he's known for being a thieving bitch himself.
There's a plot I badly want to play with, but cannot find a good place to fit it in where Loki loses his Alltongue. Because I want to explore the Asgardian language more, and force Loki to learn English properly and become literate in it. In my mind, it isn't and wouldn't be Old Norse. It would be similar, but not the same. And I think the way in which it would be similar, but not the same, is the same way Norwegian is similar, but not the same as Danish. I just really love the idea that the language of the gods sounds a bit like someone code switching between Faroese and Old Norse around a mouth full of hot mashed potatoes.
So that's why the spelling is inconsistent. It's the common ancestor of Nordic languages, and what Old Norse evolved from. I wanted to kind of evoke that as much as possible by having it not tied down to any one particular set of rules.
And Loki being illiterate is something that's always bothered me, both in the comics and the MCU. Yes, he speaks this magical language that allows him to understand and be understood, but it never explains how he can write and type in English. He writes fanfic and hacks government systems. The man's obviously literate, but there aren't any rules established for how. So right now, he is illiterate in Enlgish. He can read, through the Alltongue, but he cannot write. And I need to force that upon him or he will never learn.
Another thing that came from the comics is one that has been peppered throughout Norse Marvel since Venus in the 40s, but actually got some good page time finally in Journey into Mystery. This non-interference pact, signed by all the pantheons.
I think I started working on this series around the time that arc was happening in JiM. It was such a fun idea, and one that worked very well as the crux of a lot of the plots I wanted to do. It served perfectly as a vehicle for Loki to run around on Midgard unchecked. Because let's be real, that pact has not been enforced at all from the moment it was first mentioned. But what if it were enforced? What if gods who found themselves on Earth found a wide open planet, free of cosmic law as a result, where they could do as they wished as long as they were comfortable living as a criminal? This sung to this chaotic, playful version of Loki that Journey into Mystery was giving us. What if this little boy, born centuries earlier, had a realm all to himself? How would he abuse this precious thing he has found? Or would he hoard it for himself, a secret treasure only for him to play with?
Also, I had no reason from the comics to ship Fandral/Loki. That came entirely from the way they briefly interacted in Thor 1, and my love for stupid crack ships. Fandral seemed to be the only one on Loki's side in a few scenes. Then again in TDW, he had no goddamn problem going on this wild adventure with him. Though a lot of Fandral's personality did come from the comics, especially Fraction's run of Thor. There's just something about him; some pervasive thing where he often seems like he's going out of his way to prove his straightness. I know there's a tendency to want Asgard to be above such petty intolerances, but there's plenty of backing for this sort of cultural bigotry, both toward Fandral himself and toward Loki when she wore Sif's body.
One thing that is pretty clear, if you look at it, is that Asgard is not a shining beacon of wealth and enlightenment within the cosmos. Odin is a tribal king in some relatively undeveloped backwater. They still use swords and siege tactics. What travel technology they do possess seems to be limited to local travel, or else is magical in nature. When the dark elves attacked in TDW, nobody knew what the hell to do with that ship. When Thor and Loki tried to steal one, it was pretty obviously new technology for them. They didn't know how to fly that shit. They just kind of made it up. So it makes sense to me that this fairly isolated, out of date society would have fairly isolated, outdated cultural beliefs.
And then this happened, and it's canon, and my mind will not be changed.
Also, if you read the Many Lives and Deaths of Luke Olson, I hope you got as much of a kick out of this shit as I did. I really need to go back and expand on some of these little adventures of his.
And while we're here, I do want to talk a little bit more about Odin's sons, and his legacy. I'm not sure if those names were picked deliberately in Disassembled, but these four particular sons of Odin paint a very bleak picture of his line. The comics tend to go the direction that none of Odin's children are the result of sex with whoever his wife at the moment tends to be. They're all fostered, or half-siblings, or the result of affairs. Not a single one of them is a natural child of the marriage bed. Loki is fosterd/adopted, Thor's mother is Gaea, Viðar's mother is Grid, and Baldur's mother is Frigga, who is apparently not Freyja, because Marvel is confusing as fuck. The wiki lists Freyja as his mother, but it was pretty explicitly an afffair with another woman.
I don't like this, tbh. It feels very much like an attempt to make sense of the original source material where Odin is literally the father of all the gods, but when translated to a patriarchal society where the male heir inherits all, it falls apart. I took out all of the foster and affair elements, save for Loki. And so we have Odin's four sons — itself something to celebrate. The king has four heirs. Four sons to carry his legacy. Something will have to go very poorly wrong for the line of Odin to fall apart.
First there is Loki, tecnically his eldest, but last in line. Taken as a thrall, but adopted and raised as a twin to Odin's true heir, Thor. He is the only of the four who seems to have taken any serious interest in his role, and yet spends more time in other realms than Asgard itself. As long as he is betrothed to a woman none can find, he cannot wed, and cannot produce a true heir. If Loki inherits, something has gone dreadfully wrong. For this to happen, all three of his brothers would have to die before producing their own heir.
Then there is Thor, strong and mighty and poised to one day take the throne. He is arrogant and a bully, often selfishly serving only himself. This is the son who will one day rule Asgard as a tyrant. His prospective marriage is rather unlikely at this point, with Sif shifting to ally with Loki instead of him. But as King, at least he will be able to take any bride he wants. There will likely be an heir eventually.
Then there is Baldur, second in line. The spare. Largely disinterested in his role as a result. Knows very little about what goes on in the palace, despite rarely leaving. Doesn't seem to like any of his brothers much. Doomed to die and end the world, if one chooses to believe certain interpretations of myth and prophecy. At least he hasn't completely screwed up his marriage prospects, though he's also still fairly young and hasn't yet taken his Rite.
And then, Viðar. Another embarassment. He doesn't speak, and therefore cannot take any active role. Third in line, and still a child. Were the throne to somehow fall to him, it would be chaos. Were the throne to fall to Viðar, Loki would surely rule as regent. Likely seen as slow, or unintelligent, Viðar's chances of producing an heir are slim to none.
Somehow, Odin's line is in shambles, despite having four sons. He has one who revels in enforced bachelordom, one who has severely damaged his prospects, and one who likely will not be able to wed. The best thing that can be done is install Thor on the throne early, further open his prospects, and produce an heir. He could technically have any woman on Asgard, but perhaps it would be better for him to take a bride from another realm. Though I think he'd be more likely to try to win Sif back, out of sheer stubbornness. Never mind the fact that he has completely pissed her off to the point that despite everything, she has come to trust Loki more than she does Thor.
And she still doesn't even trust Loki either. You can see that very plainly in Blood Price. He terrifies her. And he's still preferred to Thor when it comes to important matters. That's how badly Thor has fucked this up.
No matter how Odin tries, his line is forever in shambles. And this panel from Thor Season 1 is one of the only times he ever seems to admit it.
I want to do more with this when Loki returns to Asgard. Odin has his motives for what he does, and they need to be explored. Because every one of them comes back to his children, and how none of them are doing what they're supposed to. He's stuck in this really uncomfortable position where his children are largely embarassments or disappointments for various reasons, though he tries not to admit it. Somehow, none of them have been even remotely prepared to actually do the job they're supposed to be doing, despite everyone's best efforts.
Thor, destined to be king, is an entitled bully. Loki, destined to be Thor's right hand, is distrusted and despised by literally everyone who matters. Baldur, the theoretical "spare" has taken exactly zero interest in even pretending to learn what he's meant to be doing. And Viðar, who can't even speak, is barely expected to learn how to dress himself. All Odin sees is a very bleak future for Asgard unless these brats get their shit together. Which is unlikely if one's trying to start wars with other realms, another keeps fucking off to other realms every time he's presented with responsibility, and the other two are plain and simple incapable. (And King Baldur was a terrible, terrible fiasco, and even he admits it.)
Somehow, in my quest to avoid the Odin's A+ Parenting trope, I accidentally made him the most sympathetic damn character in this entire ordeal.
Which is cool, because lately he's pretty much the only person on Asgard to not only be on Loki's side, but actively seems invested in his future.