Loki Appreciation 2020

[Raye]

I dunno if that's still considered canon, given some more recent things, actually, or at least, I think it's been softened a bit. I mean, Kid Loki is also on that page, so.... which one is accurate? Also, lil Loki there is talking about his birth parents, who were explicitly abusive, of course he hated them, and wanted the power to escape his situation. He's a child in a terrible situation unable to do anything about it, and he was upset and angry, entertaining power fantasies as a result. It doesn't mean he couldn't have turned around with time and some better treatment than he ended up getting. (and in fact it seems he DID turn around, at least for a while, if JIM is anything to go by) His situation in Asgard was definitely better than staying in Jotunheim with Laufey, and he himself has acknowledged that on several occasions, but... better doesn't necessarily equal good. He can acknowledge the fact that he likely would have died long ago, after living a short miserable life if he had not been adopted, and be grateful for that, while still being upset about later mistreatment. It doesn't matter if that mistreatment wasn't nearly as severe as what he would have endured with Laufey, it's still not something he has to be happy about, just because he escaped something worse. It's a complicated situation. And yeah, I do get that he totally over-reacted. (and I think he gets that now, or at least is beginning to) But still.

Some things have also been wildly inconsistent, some times it's more like the page shown here, where he came into the family already on the path to going bad, other times he just comes across as a regular lil kid. Like, Kid Loki is Loki as he was when he was a child, he has the same memories and personality up until the Asgardian equivalent of like 11 or 12 or so, and he's an utter sweetheart. I think that now is the primary perception of Loki as a child, it's gotten WAY more panel time than any other version of him as a child, even if he was kinda plucked out of time so his situation was different, and he ended up with an adult older brother who adored him rather than a jerkass teenager. So yeah, I do think the current thinking is that Loki was a good kid that went bad. JIM strongly implied that he definitely could have lived a completely happy life if he had gotten the kind of love and support that he got from Thor in that story. But that also implies he didn't get that originally, and was at best neglected. And so we have a situation where there are takes that conflict, particularly about the past, and while I do think lil frost giant Loki and Kid Loki can be reconciled to an extent, writers just kinda have to go with what best fits their story, lately that has meant what has sort of settled into a vague notion of what he was like as a child, more based on Kid Loki, even if that doesn't quite line up with JMS' take, it's messy, and there isn't really a good way to clean it up now without retconning or ignoring something, since the contradictory takes are already out there.

So back to the main point no, they haven't shown Thor actually hitting him as a child or anything that i am aware of, but they have shown the aftermath, it's hinted at. There were a few parts of Aaron's run, parts of Loki's 2 solo series, parts of JiM, etc. (off the top of my head, he describes his childhood to Thor as 'fighting for my survival' and Thor does not contradict this, Tyr also said some things that suggested past bullying, his solo series showed flashbacks where he had been hit and was bleeding, possibly more roughhousing than attacked, but they still didn't seem to care much that he was hurt, Volstagg talked about when he was younger and got picked on etc. I am not going to go dig up panels, but they are there) because, as mentioned, just not a lot has been shown of that time, we haven't directly seen much at all about his childhood that paints it as particularly good or bad, we've seen almost nothing at all, we're left to infer things from things that have been said in the present, and what has been shown is often contradictory. But the point remains that Thor used to be a dick, that is a well established part of his backstory, so it would not be out of character from his younger self, and I think the current thinking among the writers and editorial is that Loki was likely bullied and such as a child in part because Thor wasn't always the generally nice guy (with some exceptions, like this issue) he's become in the present, and the way Thor and Loki have interacted and talked of the past recently, post-JIM, seems to support this. Sorta-kinda a retcon, maybe, to make him have a more sympathetic backstory to support a more heroic present version, and yeah, it's not very much, and largely hinted at, but on the other hand, not like there was a whole lot there to retcon.

(I am done editing now, sorry, I'm terrible about that, i know)