Loki Ended in the Worst Way Possible
Loki was very much an Identity Politics driven show.
This, unsurprisingly, brought along a lot of Woke baggage as well a variety of Mary Sue feminist heroines.
The title character started off as a Loki who gets pulled out of time at the end of the first Avengers movie. He has not undergone the redemption arc that will turn him from trickster villain to trickster hero.
Which was what people who tuned into this expected to see. Loki would go through a hero’s journey and become a trickster hero. “A source of luck in times of uncertainty. To be able to cross boundaries that none other may cross. And to serve justice when justice has failed… The last hope for those who feel crushed by fate, and the hero who will ‘take up the gauntlet of heaven and oppose the order of life and the gods who proclaimed it so.’” Put a pin in that last bit.
Instead, the producers proudly proclaimed they would “subvert expectations.” Which is an idiot’s way of saying they would deny the audience emotional gratification for the sake of their own political masturbation and call it entertainment. On the basis of that, they at least knew what they were trying to do. I wasn’t always sure.
Loki’s previous character arc involved everyone pointing out to him why he was a bad person. However, since this is current year politics Loki had to internalize that he was a bad person and then apologize for it constantly. I couldn’t keep track of how many times Loki apologized.
A good writer will show how something (or someone) stands on its own strength. A bad one will try to show how the new thing is stronger by showing its superiority to something (or someone) the audience already knows is powerful in the first place. Again, very current year politics.
The audience always hates this because it deliberately negates all emotional investment the audience had. A massive for instance was when the Infinity Stones were trashed. “Some guys use them as paperweights.” Almost fifteen years of audience investment was flushed in that sentence.
This was yet another tragic attempt to “deconstruct the Hero’s Journey.” Nobody on earth except Hollywood writers and the demons who infest them want to see that. And not just because the method for doing so is five hours of sitting and talking followed by apologizing, (this wasn’t a show it was a Marxist struggle session).
People read comics because the need for heroism is bone deep in our very existence. Only people trying to change human nature into something more progressive want to destroy heroes.
Was there anything I liked?
Tom Hiddleston, Richard E. Grant and that’s it.
But I could have liked the ending with one simple change. It wouldn’t have saved the show but it would have elevated the work.
There was FINALLY follow through on the Easter eggs and hints in a Marvel Disney + series. The bad guy does indeed appear to be Kang the Conqueror. As of this writing, Marvel has not officially said that’s who He Who Remains is however, Jonathon Majors IMDB page credits him as Kang the Conqueror in the upcoming Antman and Wasp Quantum Mania.
The TVA was indeed playing it straight. In the 31st Century, one Kang got in touch with another Kang in the dimension next door. He was an ambitious scientist at the time. They contacted other Kangs, and there was a ton of shared knowledge across the multiverse. That led to great wealth for the Kangs, followed by great power. The Kangs started subjugating their own dimensions and then started in on different universes leading to a horrifying, apocalyptic war of all against all across the multi-verse. Finally, one of the Kangs established the TVA and snuffed out the other timelines, leaving himself as He Who Remains.
Thus inflicting peace at the expense of freedom.
Sylvie kills He Who Remains, and the multiverse begins to diverge.
The problem is that it should never been Sylvie. She’s an Outlaw Hero. *
Trickster villain or trickster hero, Loki is always going to be a trickster. That is elementary to the character’s existence. And Predestination is always going to be fundamentally antithetical to that existence. He will rebel against that because he must. Whether the result was going to be liberation or horror, it could not matter to Loki. He would be the one to kill He Who Remains.
Except of course, they spent six hours castrating Loki and turning him into a wet noodle, so a strong confident whamen could be the hero in Loki’s story.
However, when I say, “Loki ended in the worst way possible.” I’m not referring to this. I’m talking about the final line in the end credits:
“Loki will return for Season 2.”
*That’s my next heroic archetype.
