Believable Characters

Greetings one and all!

So just as I'm trying to settle down for the night a little thought occurs to me, and then it just sits there and doesn't move. Doesn't do anything but sits and stews and I can't shift it.
That is tonight's blog I'm afraid, but it's a super interesting topic!

When I went to NineWorlds I went to a panel on 2 topics which were very interesting. Manipulative Bastards and Believable Clerics. An interesting combination but one that caught my curiosity enough to pull me out from my nervous con-newb state to go find it and have a listen. Both parts were REALLY awesome though I'll be honest the Believable Clerics bit has left me a lot to think about. Today's blog is a blending of thoughts about the two.

Loki in the Marvel Films is INCREDIBLY believable. Through an awesome combination of writing and acting, the character of Loki in Thor, Avengers and Thor 2 is really believable.

So to lead you where my brain was going this night I was just randomly watching things on Youtube and stumbled onto this music vid: Here Feel free to watch it now or later, either way I found it really interesting because the clips from the films gave my brain the insight it needed to come to another conclusion as to why I REALLY like the character of Loki.

He is believable.

Now I will admit I'm a little biased, I like the bad boy thing Loki has going, the intellectual superiority mixed with arrogance. However woven into that is a character with a history, a past, and even more importantly a PROGRESSION.
Because one of the things that really sunk in from the believable clerics talk was that when you're writing a character of faith you have to really have the character HAVING that faith, through whatever that character has grown through. Even if the character themselves resent it, it's development they've gone through.

Loki changes as a character, back in Thor 1 right at the start he's the younger sibling, over looked sure but he has a small group of friends who although don't love him the same way as Thor, love him as a brother in arms who is useful in a fight and they trust to fight alongside them.
Loki sees a slightly bigger picture when it comes to Thor's coronation and decides to pull a prank, a small and pretty harmless prank that would show the Allfather that Thor's brutish and unthinking ways aren't really the right thing for Asgard right now. But he doesn't expect things to go quite so out of hand. One thing leads to another and then they're on Jotuheim and suddenly war is very much on the horizon because what started out as a small thing, has blown up so much that Thor is banished.
Loki then finds himself with a situation that certainly wasn't what he planned. Sure he's glad the Allfather has noticed that Thor isn't suitable to rule yet and his banishment might be a bit harsh but it suddenly brings Loki into a higher position than he had in the days before, a much stronger chance at the throne promised to one of the brothers. A throne he most likely wants but knows it will be a while before he takes it. Yet the spanner in the works he couldn't prepare for was finding out he was not in fact a true son of Asgard, let alone of the parents who raised him.
This is the character development here, his whole world has been turned upside down and the scene in the Asgard Treasury is a beautiful testament to that. Loki's crying and screaming of rage all very believable feelings when you've just found out that what you have believed your whole life, has been a lie.
The rest of the Thor film then deals with the immediate result of the aftermath of that prank, that one sibling rivalry and joviality causing so much chaos and change in the lives of the royalty of Asgard. Loki changes as he tries to settle his feelings for his mother and father, who aren't biologically his parents. He tries to settle with the feelings of being descended from monsters, and how to stop them from hurting the Asgard people after Thor's upheaval of a long held 'peace'. His own desire to rule coupled with, in all honesty, his lack of knowledge in how to rule. It's clear that although Loki has the smarts, he doesn't have the experience and certainly not the people skills needed to rule in any way like the Allfather and so knowing that his subjects distrust him having to work harder to manipulate and change things around him so that his plans on how to deal with things go as planned. Trying to leave no errors for chance. And flubbing that too.

At the end of the film Loki tries to beseech the only father he has ever known to say he had tried to made him proud, and I believe the character in that. Because the character of Loki has tried to end a threat in the only way he knows how, from how he was raised coupled with the intelligence he has. Remove the king of the Jotun and then eliminate the populace when they weren't expecting it. I'm not, by the way, suggesting I condone it, but to the character it makes sense. With the Bifrost having dealt such tremendous challenge, it would be eons before the Frost Giants would ever threaten any of the Nine Realms again, and as such he will of saved the people an fulfilled part of his duty as a King. To keep them safe from such dangers. Of course the Allfather sees that Loki has caused such chaos and destruction, annihilating a peoples and although it was Thor himself who broke the Rainbow Bridge, you can see the Allfather blames Loki for that too.
So Loki let's go and plunges into the cosmos in despair and probably more than a little depression and self-loathing.

Can you BLAME him? Hell no! He is at what is most likely the LOWEST point in his life.

Which then leads to the Avangers(Assemble). Where Loki is even more manipulative than before, taking control of other peoples minds and using this information to plot and plan and judge more of how his enemies are going to act and planning everything around that. For example, the whole trip to the Helicarrier.
Sadly, for him, his arrogance has grown so much that in the end he is defeated in this plan (some say he did it deliberately, we may or may not find out about that in a later year/films) and is taken back to Asgard.

Thor 2, Loki is still clearly angry with his family and isn't thrilled at being locked up in prison. Probably doubly so as there's gonna be things down there that he assisted in putting there. Not the bast mind set.
He then loses his mother, who from what we gather he still has deep affection for (again who can blame him, he's the only loving mother he's ever known) and is even denied going to her funeral because he is such a criminal that he isn't allowed to attend it. I'd also add as an EXTRA insult to the character, it's not any of his family or friends who tell him the news either, it's a random guard. Talk about insulting!
Then Thor comes looking for his help. Now we know from how the rest of the film goes that at SOME point they discuss and concoct the plan regarding Thor's hand. But the scene where they walk down the corridor together and Loki nearly gets them caught out, is wonderful. Because there's still this brotherly bond between them, it's stretched to it's limits sure, but there's no denying that the bond is there and there's a little playing off it. Cumulating with Thor slipping the cuffs on Loki. Hehe.
Another beautiful touch is how the Warriors Three and Sif, threaten Loki if he betrays Thor and Loki gets very tired of it quickly. These people used to be his friends, and briefly subjects, and yet they are perfectly willing to threaten to kill him outright for any hint of betrayal.

As the ship flies (On a side note I LOVE the shape of the Asgard boat-ship things!) and they escape it's again good to see the family banter, how it's changed from the first film into something much more broken and yet it could be restored though scared to a place it had been before.
'She wouldn't want us to fight!'
'Well she wouldn't exactly be shocked'
and that little smile between brothers. Something in those moments, on that boat, fix a few of the things that had shattered across the previous films. Not enough to bring them even CLOSE to being back to where they were. But closer to being just brothers again.

The ending of Thor 2 I won't spoil for anyone who hasn't seen it (I know that seems weird for a film nearly 2 years released but I hadn't seen it until a month or two ago) but I will say that once again we see more character development which will be VERY interesting to see how it goes in Thor 3: Ragnarok (I'm going to have to read up on the viking mythology for that one)

So yes we have a manipulative bastard in Loki. However he's completely believable in what he does because we can see the reasons why, the changes, the developments.
I'd even say the growing up.
Seriously! Go back and look at how Loki is in Thor 1, how he looks and acts. Although Asgardians are very very long lived (I don't think they provide an exact, but things could probably be guessed in a vague timeline regarding the war of the Frost Giants and how that wove with Midgard and it's history) but I'd say Loki's a young man in terms of maturity. Emotionally the sudden changing of his life strikes him hard and deep and scars as it happens, I'd put the emotional development at around 18-21 of our real human age range? A man by society, and yet hasn't quite gotten there yet (obviously I'm generalising and trying not to bias with the 'boys' I had the misfortune to go to school with) and the events in the films change who he could of been. Change how he deals with people and leaves us believing in the character for all of it.

So yes, that's my 1am ramble of an idea that wouldn't leave my brain alone.

Thank you for joining me and I hope you have a lovely evening!