You wanna make an omelette, you’ve gotta break some eggs.
Fight Club (1998), Underground novel turn cult movie
Can’t make an omelette… without killing a few people.
Neverwhere (1996), BBC TV series turn bestseller novel
It’s amazing how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette.
Issawi’s Laws of Social Motion (1973), obscure book by a cynical Middle East historian
The End
I will start this piece by writing backwards in time, because some stories begin when a world ends. 2018. Avengers: Infinity War
Thanos snapped the infinity gauntlet and killed every significant character in the MCU, suspiciously sparing the original six. It’s easier to frame that sentence in 2021; but back then, watching the Avengers lose for the first time really messed up our day. Instead of one knockout punch, Thanos beat every character to pulp across space and time. The first casualty of a massive reboot, was none other than our protagonist, Loki himself, waking us up from a blur of superhero steroid victory train. After six long years, we got shaken real bad, which is quite telling about what the MCU was turning into. As a matter of fact, between the first Avengers and Infinity War, we only remembered Black Panther (Ryan Coogler remakes Baahubali in African) and Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi gives Thor a haircut). But how did Earth’s mightiest heroes become so boring that we had to turn most of them into dust?
The Beginning
After exiling Loki, the Avengers took a year off trying to figure out what to do with so much success. They chickened and gave us a conservative Iron man 3, which was fine. Then they gave us an insulting Thor: The Dark World. It could have been a movie about Loki’s redemption. Instead, the best thing we got was a Quora thread on-
Why is Thor: The Dark World considered one of the worst MCU films?
Good, I knew you wouldn’t click on that link. Here’s a more interesting, yet poetically painful video of Loki lifting the Mjolnir.
But after a cataclysmic 2013, Marvel Studios went back to the drawing board, hired the Russo brothers and did something very interesting in 2014.
Varun Dhawan was hired as the Hindi voice artist for Captain America.
My bad. That happened later, in Civil War.
But before that, in Winter Soldier, we saw the storyline evolve from sci fi spandex action to a compelling spy thriller. This was notable in an industry where Johnny Depp, Dwayne Johnson, Robert Downey Jr and Salman Khan played the same role to death. But the Avengers showed they could change. Banner and Natasha fell in love. Thor had a break up. Tony Stark came back from retirement. Steve Rogers went rogue for good. Hawkeye started a family. We also started getting new Avengers and it even got to a point where we started expecting a Sherlock Holmes multiverse inside the MCU.
The Avengers were growing up and so were we. We went to college, shifted cities, broke our hearts, moved from Facebook to Instagram, got high, found new music, started making money and stopped picking mom’s phone calls. We realised that the world was complex and we moved on from the idea of one career, one love, one God and one Super Villain. Gender became a spectrum and Snapchat gave us enough filters to look away from the mirror. Shit, the world felt so vibrant with a wide screen phone and free internet. Back in 2012, mischief could end New York City. Now even catastrophe was just a notification. Everyday a new right winger, everyday a new lynching, but atleast everyday a new Avenger. We wanted a superhero orgy. The only world where that happens is a world that’s always on fire. We wanted a dopamine hit. We got enough to give us crippling anxiety.
Is this what freedom looks like? Should we have stayed back in school? Where’s Loki?
The Middle
So, Ragnarok. A bit of a recap…
Thor is loitering across the nine realms and Loki is disguised as Odin ruling over Asgard. Much like Odin’s palace, Loki’s brief reign is built on a foundation of lies, death and propaganda. Much like Thor (and Matt Damon), we are disappointed but not surprised. Then Loki falls for thirty minutes… watches Mjolnir break in Norway… arrives at Sakaar: a cosmic wasteland, home to all things loved and unloved. He thrives in this dumpster. He charms his way into power amidst chaos, gets cocky, gets captured, gets free, creates even more chaos and backstabs his friends again. Much like Thor, we are disappointed but not surprised. However, we see a bit of dejection in Loki’s eyes when Thor expresses his indifference towards him. This time, we even see Thor play smart and get the better of him. Loki no longer surprised us.
We realise that Loki was always the younger baby brother; breaking precious glassware just to get attention from his strong, imposing sibling. Loki wanted love. He turned into a cruel, lying God because he didn’t know how else to get it from Thor and from the people of Asgard.
So many broken eggs, yet no decent omelette.
Round and round in circles we go. See Loki, life is about... It's about growth, it's about change, but you seem to just want to stay the same. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you'll always be the God of Mischief, but you could be more.
Now, Taika Waititi is a genius. He ends up making a movie about revolution disguised as family drama. On Sakaar, the Grandmaster keeps his subjects poor and imprisoned, but refrains from calling them slaves. Once the people are armed, the revolution spreads like wildfire from the wasteland to Asgard, lead by none other than Loki with Korg (played by Waititi) as his lieutenant. As much as the movie is about Thor getting a makeover, the nuance lies in Loki’s redemption. The golden kingdom was built on lies perpetuated across epochs. By setting Asgard ablaze, Loki sets himself and his people free from the lies of his father. It took the end of a world, but at least Loki found love from his brother and loyalty from a band of unloved rebels. In a subtle move, as Thor finally sits on his throne, Loki walks into the closing frame stepping ahead of Hulk, fearless.
This is the part where everyone’s happy for a change. Maybe we can just ignore how brutal the ending is going to be, and stay in the middle for a while, drifting aimlessly in space.
Post Credits
The Avengers travel back in time, mess up like always and Loki retrieves the Tesseract. We were very surprised but not disappointed. Loki was being walked away, chained and muzzled. Then… he escaped.
Part 3, coming up soon.
Rest in Power, Chadwick Boseman.
For those interested in a little bit of a backstory with some time to kill, check out:
The Winter of Loki: Blooper Reel
I would advise against it, but free will y’all.
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