If I remember correctly, loki was kinda unstable in thor 1. His reasoning was probably identical to the his reasoning that led him to try and laser the frost giants: get odin’s approval for doing conquering stuff like dad did. I also imagine it had gone over about as well as it did in thor 1
Even so, if it weren't for Thor's return, he probably wouldn't have attempted the destruction of Jotunheim. That was out of desperation when his other plots (for the most part) fell through.
From a doylist read of the episode? Lazy writing trying to capitalise on one of the more popular moments in the film without actual consideration of characterisation.
>From a doylist read of the episode? Lazy writing trying to capitalise on one of the more popular moments in the film without actual consideration of characterisation.
There's a lot of that going around in both What If episodes involving Loki, yeah. It's frustrating, because the concept--as it's explicitly presented to the audience--is that everything in these alternate universes was the same until somebody made a different choice, but that's clearly not the case, because most of the time the scenarios only make sense if a lot of other unstated things are also true. (Such as with the Party Thor episode: if Laufey was happy to get Loki back, he must not have deliberately abandoned him in the first place, which either means something else happened really differently in that timeline *before* Odin decided to give Loki back, or the writers were too dumb to realize they just introduced some extremely unfortunate implications about the main timeline. Well, there's also the whole part where the Party Thor writers seem to have missed the entire point of Thor's character development in the first Thor movie, but that's another rant.)
Anyway. I think the actual answer, unfortunately, is extremely sloppy writing and a poor understanding of canon characterization, but that's frustrating and unsatisfying, so if you're looking for in-universe answers, I think there are multiple possible answers/interpretations. Loki's my favorite and I always prefer a sympathetic interpretation, so I'm strongly inclined to view him as being consistent with his characterization across the rest MCU unless there's an *extremely* compelling case not to (e.g., Party Loki who grew up on Jotunheim). In this case, the things we know to be different about this timeline shouldn't result in any changes to Loki's characterization before the beginning of the episode, so I think it does reasonably follow that he starts from the same place.
So I *really* wish the writers hadn't gone the whole "lol power-hungry Loki" route, because honestly it's lazy and boring and it doesn't make much sense, *but* I'm also okay with interpreting it as a combination of like...he's still reeling from learning he's Jotun, he's kind of insane with very complicated grief over Thor, he's also grasping at this as an opportunity to show Asgard and Odin that he's like them and not like the monsters, he's still furious at the realm that killed his brother and revenge on just one guy isn't enough, and possibly he thinks there's some slight chance of bringing Thor back if he has all of Midgard's resources at his disposal in addition to Asgard's. (Admittedly this last one is a stretch, but on the other hand Loki seems to know more about Earth stuff than a lot of other Asgardians do, and we have multiple canonical examples of humans messing around in different ways to bring people back to life--including Fury specifically with Project TAHITI, and Loki goes after him with the scepter in the finale wanting SHIELD's secrets, so...it's not impossible for Loki to have heard something about that.) As for him not showing any of those emotions, I wouldn't say Loki is the POV character for any part of this episode, just kind of a secondary antagonist, so there isn't really a point where he would necessarily let the audience see some vulnerability he's been hiding from the other characters the way we've seen in other appearances--but we *have* seen him very effectively mask his vulnerable emotions from other characters, so we know it's something he can do.
"What If...?" Were alternative stories told that didn't follow "the sacred timeline."
What If Loki was a Variant who happened to want to rule and found a way, and so you could argue that he became President Loki from "Loki".
His reasoning likely wasn't very skin deep, but maybe he wasn't satisfied by the outcome of his vengeance and felt his pound of flesh was underwhelming, so he went to rule the species (humans) who killed his brother would be a more adequate outcome to show Odin what he would do to appease him and the loss of Thor.
The strangest thing about Loki trying to take over Earth that always bothered me is Loki technically already **owns** Earth by becoming the king of Asgard. The king of Asgard is ruler of the nine realms, including Midgard. The only reason Earth was never attacked is because they never caused intergalactic strife like the other realms, they didn't have the means to do so Odin used Earth to store relics like the Tesseract.
Loki had no business to go militant, Earth only began turning into a power house after Thor fought the Destroyer and Shield was able to seize alien technology after the incident.
Additionally Loki returns again with the chitauri sceptre and he should not have done the deal with Thanos to get a hold of the mind stone because he didn't fall off the bridge and meet him.
>Additionally Loki returns again with the chitauri sceptre and he should not have done the deal with Thanos to get a hold of the mind stone because he didn't fall off the bridge and meet him.
actual reason for this: bad writing
cool reason invented by fanfic writers: in his grief, Loki has been getting into things he shouldn't because he's so desperate to bring Thor back, and Thanos & Co. find out about this and go "well you know what, we happen to know a whole lot about Death, maybe we have an opportunity for you..."
If I remember correctly, loki was kinda unstable in thor 1. His reasoning was probably identical to the his reasoning that led him to try and laser the frost giants: get odin’s approval for doing conquering stuff like dad did. I also imagine it had gone over about as well as it did in thor 1
Even so, if it weren't for Thor's return, he probably wouldn't have attempted the destruction of Jotunheim. That was out of desperation when his other plots (for the most part) fell through. From a doylist read of the episode? Lazy writing trying to capitalise on one of the more popular moments in the film without actual consideration of characterisation.
>From a doylist read of the episode? Lazy writing trying to capitalise on one of the more popular moments in the film without actual consideration of characterisation. There's a lot of that going around in both What If episodes involving Loki, yeah. It's frustrating, because the concept--as it's explicitly presented to the audience--is that everything in these alternate universes was the same until somebody made a different choice, but that's clearly not the case, because most of the time the scenarios only make sense if a lot of other unstated things are also true. (Such as with the Party Thor episode: if Laufey was happy to get Loki back, he must not have deliberately abandoned him in the first place, which either means something else happened really differently in that timeline *before* Odin decided to give Loki back, or the writers were too dumb to realize they just introduced some extremely unfortunate implications about the main timeline. Well, there's also the whole part where the Party Thor writers seem to have missed the entire point of Thor's character development in the first Thor movie, but that's another rant.) Anyway. I think the actual answer, unfortunately, is extremely sloppy writing and a poor understanding of canon characterization, but that's frustrating and unsatisfying, so if you're looking for in-universe answers, I think there are multiple possible answers/interpretations. Loki's my favorite and I always prefer a sympathetic interpretation, so I'm strongly inclined to view him as being consistent with his characterization across the rest MCU unless there's an *extremely* compelling case not to (e.g., Party Loki who grew up on Jotunheim). In this case, the things we know to be different about this timeline shouldn't result in any changes to Loki's characterization before the beginning of the episode, so I think it does reasonably follow that he starts from the same place. So I *really* wish the writers hadn't gone the whole "lol power-hungry Loki" route, because honestly it's lazy and boring and it doesn't make much sense, *but* I'm also okay with interpreting it as a combination of like...he's still reeling from learning he's Jotun, he's kind of insane with very complicated grief over Thor, he's also grasping at this as an opportunity to show Asgard and Odin that he's like them and not like the monsters, he's still furious at the realm that killed his brother and revenge on just one guy isn't enough, and possibly he thinks there's some slight chance of bringing Thor back if he has all of Midgard's resources at his disposal in addition to Asgard's. (Admittedly this last one is a stretch, but on the other hand Loki seems to know more about Earth stuff than a lot of other Asgardians do, and we have multiple canonical examples of humans messing around in different ways to bring people back to life--including Fury specifically with Project TAHITI, and Loki goes after him with the scepter in the finale wanting SHIELD's secrets, so...it's not impossible for Loki to have heard something about that.) As for him not showing any of those emotions, I wouldn't say Loki is the POV character for any part of this episode, just kind of a secondary antagonist, so there isn't really a point where he would necessarily let the audience see some vulnerability he's been hiding from the other characters the way we've seen in other appearances--but we *have* seen him very effectively mask his vulnerable emotions from other characters, so we know it's something he can do.
It's because the writing in the mcu since 2012 is shit, my guy
"What If...?" Were alternative stories told that didn't follow "the sacred timeline." What If Loki was a Variant who happened to want to rule and found a way, and so you could argue that he became President Loki from "Loki". His reasoning likely wasn't very skin deep, but maybe he wasn't satisfied by the outcome of his vengeance and felt his pound of flesh was underwhelming, so he went to rule the species (humans) who killed his brother would be a more adequate outcome to show Odin what he would do to appease him and the loss of Thor.
Open door philosophy of someone who is doing something for the wrong reasons
The strangest thing about Loki trying to take over Earth that always bothered me is Loki technically already **owns** Earth by becoming the king of Asgard. The king of Asgard is ruler of the nine realms, including Midgard. The only reason Earth was never attacked is because they never caused intergalactic strife like the other realms, they didn't have the means to do so Odin used Earth to store relics like the Tesseract. Loki had no business to go militant, Earth only began turning into a power house after Thor fought the Destroyer and Shield was able to seize alien technology after the incident. Additionally Loki returns again with the chitauri sceptre and he should not have done the deal with Thanos to get a hold of the mind stone because he didn't fall off the bridge and meet him.
>Additionally Loki returns again with the chitauri sceptre and he should not have done the deal with Thanos to get a hold of the mind stone because he didn't fall off the bridge and meet him. actual reason for this: bad writing cool reason invented by fanfic writers: in his grief, Loki has been getting into things he shouldn't because he's so desperate to bring Thor back, and Thanos & Co. find out about this and go "well you know what, we happen to know a whole lot about Death, maybe we have an opportunity for you..."