Moments of Permanence - May 31st, 2012

About May 31st, 2012

Meta-ish: Fandom, sexuality, and mythology 01:07 pm
Thor/Loki bugs me.

I get why people do it. Loki is obsessed with Thor, he wants his love and his approval even though he resents him and hates him, and he wants to be the centre of his attention, always, and he's messed up and broken and inside he's just a tangled ball of rage and pain and need. Thor is conflicted, torn between love and anger and guilt and regret and the need to protect the world from Loki, and to protect Loki from himself.

As a rule, that's a perfect fandom setup for crazy, messed-up love stories, except the thing is... bringing sex into it isn't necessary, because they're brothers, they grew up together, Loki living in Thor's shadow like it was the only place he could ever be, and it was home even though it froze him solid, and that's part of their damage. Throwing sex in there cheapens it, makes it broken and dysfunctional on a level that's beneath them.

Besides, they're Norse gods. That's not how they roll.

If they were Greek gods, it would be different, of course; if they were Greek gods, then not only would incest be an understandable direction for fandom to take their relationship, I for one would find it dubious if they had a relationship that was in any way ongoing that didn't involve sex - with each other, with each other's girlfriends, boyfriends, pets, and household furniture. If they were Greek gods, Loki would be seducing the Iron Man suit to get back at Thor for nailing Sleipnir, or impregnating Darcy via taking the form of her iPod.
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