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Wednesday 9 November 2011

Movie Costumes I Have Loved: Thor.

For the last ten years or so, blockbuster comicbook movies have been getting gradually less and less comicbook-y. That's not a criticism -- after all, The Dark Knight is a zillion times better than the infamously godawful Batman & Robin, even if it does take place entirely in the dark and focus on a ridiculously good-looking billionaire being sad about how hard his life is -- but I did enjoy getting a chance to see a movie as shamelessly comicbook-looking as Thor, because it really would have been impossible to make a story about sparkly alien god-beings seem super dark and serious. His weapon is a magical hammer, hello.
As you can tell from his helmet, nobody in Asgard gives a shit about low doorways.
(Also, Thor is the first feminist superhero movie. It is! Read that article, it says it better than I ever could.)

I was a bit doubtful of Thor at first, especially since when I asked my comicbook friend Michael whether it was just a film about an angry blond jock with an enormous hammer, he said, "YES, AND THAT'S WHY IT'S AWESOME." But once I saw it I had to agree that while it was still a film about an angry blond jock with a hammer, it WAS awesome! It was 100% sparkles and explosions, and 0% tiresome Hollywood sexism! The hero had a convincing rapport with his love-interest, unlike Batman (Christopher Nolan, I love you, but why must all your female characters be cardboard cut-outs and/or dead?) or Spiderman (Mary Jane: start carrying a taser, you get kidnapped like twice a week)! Thor and Loki's daddy issues were interesting and emotionally compelling, unlike the representation of pretty much any other blockbuster hero's daddy issues ever.
Disco eyepatches are in!
And it has some sparkleicious fantasy costumes, the likes of which have not been seen in years. I love the more "realistic" style of costumes used in LOTR and Harry Potter, but if they'd make Thor all harsh-looking and mysterious it would have ruined it, I think. Much of this movie's appeal comes from the contrast between the over-the-top, rainbows-and-gold visuals of Asgard (where Thor is an alien prince with a magical hammer), and Natalie Portman's impoverished scientist lifestyle in New Mexico (where Thor is a hot yet possibly-crazy homeless man). If you haven't seen the movie then most of the Asgardian costumes in this post are going to look completely ridiculous, but I promise you that in the context of a civilisation of alien vikings (really glam alien vikings, who despite the very sound advice of the superhero costume lady from The Incredibles, still have an ongoing love-affair with capes) they are perfectly acceptable.
Asgard, land of sparkles. That long walkway in the middle is made of GLOWING CRYSTALS and is called the Rainbow Bridge, just FYI.
OK, so for maximum shininess I'd put Heimdall first, even though he's a relatively minor character. Caveat: I have not seen an actor look so much look like an action figure in a long, long time, maybe ever. Even Captain America did not look this much like an action figure, and Captain America practically is an action figure.

His job is basically the all-seeing alien viking equivalent of being the guy who checks the CCTV cameras for break-ins. He spends most of the movie standing around looking imposing and wise, so it's not totally clear to me why he requires metal shoulderpads the size of a buick. HOWEVER, I am not Asgardian so who am I to judge? Like Liberace or Roman emperors, most these guys find it necessary to wear capes to breakfast. Haters to the left.
Asgardians are not subtle when it comes to phallic symbols. Ask Thor about his hammer some time.
When it comes to comicbook adaptations the costumes are very rarely the same as those found in the books, both because many superheroes change costumes regularly and because those costumes look either like brightly-coloured 1980s jumpsuits or really specialised stripper outfits (or both). However, considering how silly comics-Thor costumes appear to be, they've carried a surprising amount of the original looks through. (You may correct me if I'm wrong, readers -- I admit that I've never actually read a Thor comic so this assumption comes entirely from tumblr images.) For example, the whole helmets thing. Loki's comicbook costume appears to be something like this, leading to movie-Loki looking like a cross between Johnny Weir and a really gothy antelope:
(Here's a gallery of photos of the prop helmets, if you're interested.)
I really enjoyed Loki's armour because it was so clearly ceremonial. This does not look to me like working armour. Thor, Sif (Thor's female friend) and the Warriors Three all had comparatively functional armour, but Loki's armour fails to cover his legs, a bunch of his torso, and his throat. Loki's not a warrior. In fact, there's a very obvious brains/brawn delineation between Loki and Thor from the very first scenes in Asgard, as I recall. I suspect that Loki is the Asgardian equivalent of a nerd, and he mostly seems to rely on his wit and magical powers to win fights. In pre-prodution his Asgardian costume looked a bit more melodramatic, but I prefer what they went with in the end (plus it's far more suited to Tom Hiddleston's slim figure).
He's wearing black, so by standard Hollywood blockbuster logic he's probably going to turn evil.
Photo via Tumblr, I'm afraid.
Queen Frigg has a selection of super glam outfits, most of them in the 1970s stage costume/fantasy cartoon realm, like this one. Personally I think this gown is stunning in a "that would be horrifying in real life" kind of way. I love the combination of retrofuturistic silhouette (like the capes the men wear, her gown has stiffened boning to hold it in shape at the top) and cheesy celtic knot/Lord Of The Rings elf-ish patterns down the sides. Here's a close-up of the zillions of uncomfortable-looking rhinestones:
Queens don't need to be able to move their arms; they have people to do that stuff for them. She probably has like five disco Valkyries standing off to the side with magical alien hairspray to fix her hair if it ever comes out of its rigid curls. This costume would not look out of place in old-school Star Trek, and therefore I approve of it on principal. 
This is what movies would like to think ladies look like when they are being "casual" and/or are just about to go to bed. ie, part of her hair is slightly out of place but she's still wearing earrings, a ring, lipstick, and a metal-fibre dress. This is what alien viking queens wear to their husbands sickbeds, apparently.
As for Sif and Thor's Asgardian BFFs the Warriors Three, I couldn't find any decent full-length pictures so here's one of the stunt actors in the stunt versions of their costumes from the beginning of the movie.
Source: behind-the-scenes pics.
Note that Sif is wearing just as much clothing/armour as the men: practically unheard-of! Hogun's costume looks somewhat inspired by traditional Japanese armour, with a split half-skirt of flexible armour around the thighs. Fandral (the blonde dude) is meant to be a bit of an Errol Flynn-esque rake and therefore has a whole Robin Hood thing going on with the green colour-scheme and the turned-up cuffs, not to mention the fabulous hair.
Having looked at the Warriors Three comicbook picture on wikipedia, I think this is a fairly reasonable adaptation. I mean:
Volstagg is like giant viking Henry VIII in magenta shoulderpads, Hogun is a Mongolian warrior wearing a leather miniskirt and toting an enormous metal club, and Fandral is wearing what appears to be thigh-high boots and a fur-collared muscle shirt. Did I mention that these guys are from a culture that's developed interstellar travel? I fucking love it. Watching this type of movie generally requires you to switch off the part of your brain that thinks things like, "but why are they riding horses/carrying hammers instead of laser pistols/still living in a monarchy?"
Did you know there's a Tumblr entirely dedicated to Women Fighters In Reasonable Armour? Well, you do now!
The true majesty of Thor's epic cape-and-armour outfit is best illustrated by standing him next to a normal-sized person wearing normal earth clothing, so here we go:
SO RED. SO SHINY. SO... CODPIECE-Y. Also, his fishscale armour is really well made, they've managed to make it look like it's almost painted on to his ludicrously sculpted biceps. Kudos on that one, bicep-measurers. Your task is an evidently an arduous one and I applaud you for it. I'm still not really clear what those little shields on the torso are for, though. Decoration, I guess. The cape, of course, is wonderful. I was very heartened to learn from the costume designer that quite a bit of work went into designing the capes -- if you think about it, it's actually pretty hard to make a cape that billows when you want it to and stands still the rest of the time without bunching up in weird places.
He has some muscles.
Once on Earth, Thor's costumes become almost aggressively normal and generic-looking. In a way this emphasises how alien he is, because we've already got used to him being the dude in the cape, plus he's now a huge loud blond smiling body-builder in the middle of a zero-horse town in New Mexico. From a practical perspective, I assume that Thor's new friends had to quickly borrow and/or buy him a new wardrobe from the local thrift store, so plaid shirts and jeans make sense. Anyway, now for the most shocking part of this post: the Earth ladies.
SHE'S CHILLY SO SHE'S WEARING A SWEATER.
All of Natalie Portman's outfits are totally boring and sensible. Both Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings are stunningly beautiful, but Natalie Portman's character is a workaholic scientist and both women look like they're dressing for comfort, although Kat Dennings is a little more esoteric in style.

Never in all my years of superhero/cheesy blockbuster movie watching have I seen a scene like this next picture, in which two female characters (one of whom is funny and confident and the other is a workaholic science geek -- yet neither are mocked and derided for these characteristics, either implicitly or explicitly) sit down to discuss their work while wearing sensible warm clothes and being awesome BFFs.
OMG Darcy Lewis I love you, please be in all future superhero movies forever.
I'm rather proud of myself for making it all the way through this post without a single reference to the fact that Loki just needs a hug or that Odin is a shitty father (I COULD GO ON ABOUT THIS FOR A WHILE), so as a reward to myself here is a picture of Loki in what may well be my favourite outfit of the entire film:
To my endless disappointment, no full-length pictures are readily available of Loki in his Earth suit. However, rest assured that he looks amazing in it. This was the only costume I thought consciously about while I was watching the film, because to me it really illustrated the differences between him and Thor. Thor, while he is a likeable guy and therefore would have done OK in the end, really fell on his feet by immediately meeting friendly Earthlings who were willing to show him the ropes vis a vis how to buy coffee and cross the road without getting run over. Had Loki been the one banished to earth I think that he'd have hidden in the shadows for a day or so until he'd learnt enough Earth mannerisms to pass, and then he'd pursue a career as a con artist. In this scene from the movie he is (presumably) on Earth for the first time, yet he's immaculately dressed in a suit and coat. I choose to ignore the fact that he's also invisible, making such a disguise somewhat pointless, and instead concentrate on the fact that he's 100% tragic dapper ice-prince.
Postscript: Regarding Loki's "just chillin' in my black leather troubled-younger-brother outfit" costume (pictured above), I can't help but think of the designer Haider Ackermann, who does a lot of interesting work with rich iridescent fabrics and unusual structuring while still making all his designs seem incredibly classy and smooth. Beautiful.
Here's how to dress like Loki if you're a lady and also have $10,000 spare. (pics from Style.com)

24 comments:

  1. GAV, I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS.

    Also this may be my favourite blog post of yours yet.

    Numbered and chronological for ease of reference:

    1) I like how in the disco eyepatch picture, Thor and Loki seem to be giving Odin the old "Dad, stop embarassing us!!" side-eye of teenagers everywhere. Imagine living for thousands of years with Odin as your Dad. Horrible and yet hilarious.

    2) Loki is totally the Asgardian nerd outcast. Everyone is always going on about how he's no good because he's not a real fighter, he just does magic, which is obviously of no use whatsoever in a fight, sometimes he turns into a lady, sometimes he has kids, he's Jötun, blah blah blah.
    Meanwhile everyone ignores that Odin does magic left and right, bore a couple of kids himself when he was younger, and is the son of a frost giantess, so he's half-Jötun himself. HELLO HYPOCRISY.

    .... I might have ~feelings about this.

    3) five disco valkyries - this is made even funnier by the fact that the valkyries were totally Odin's illegitimate daughters (at least in some versions).

    4) I fucking love the whole discrepancy between space-travelling aliens and people who wear leather and capes and ye-olde-timey weapons. SO MUCH.

    5) BICEP-MEASURERS - I love you Gav. There's actually a bit about that in the art book. Oh, and the six disk thingies on his chest are perhaps the most recognisable part of his original costume. There's a short feature in the dvd extras where ... one the production designers? Some guy anyway, he tells Stan Lee (the original creator of the Thor comics, he has a cameo in the movie like in all Marvel movies) about keeping the disks, all filled with fanboy glee. It's adorable.

    6) I love Jane and Darcy so much. ;_;
    It's kind of low-key in the movie that they aren't mocked, or that they wear sensible clothes and talk to each other about things other than guys, but that's the very best way to do it. I love this movie more every time I see it, and not the least because of this.

    7) YESSSSSS. I was thinking something along the lines of "Wow, they're really showing the contrast between I-will-be-as-loud-and-alien-as-I-want-to-who-cares-about-observing-and-fitting-in-Thor and everything-Thor-is-not-Loki." That was a really good suit. And even his hair is different! His shoes! Thor can probably barely be expected to work out modern underwear or socks.

    8) I really want the Ackermann outfit on the right. Lottery, y u no come through for me with 20 million or something? :(((

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  2. 1. i find it practically impossible to imagine odin as a proper dad. i mean, he's kind of got a planet to run, PLUS this film indicates that he's not even the great and wise leader he's supposed to me. i bet he just showed up randomly, scooped up the boys to speak in baffling aphorisms now and then (thor would be super impressed; loki would think about it afterwards and be like, "what a douchebag) and then maybe instill some more weird sibling rivalry in them while unsubtly favouring thor because thro was you know, all "boys will be boys" while loki avoided sunlight and had a baffling aversion to mean (ok that last part is just my brain, because i've decided that loki was a sickly child who couldn't eat asgardian food properly due to his ~~jotun digestive system~~.)

    2. i totally love all the fanon that meshes myth and comicbook/movie, but i think at this point in their story loki hasn't had any kids yet? (not that they'd let him have any in a hollywood blockbuster, anyway, but yeah. unless he had one on the sly that nobody knows about, i guess.) but yes, loki is SUCH an outcast -- if he wasn't a prince he'd clearly be nowhere near any of these people (a preferred outcome on both sides, for all i think that there's genuine affection between loki and sif/the warriors three). thor was totally ok with sif breaking barriers to become the only female warrior, but he seems completely unaware that loki is attempting to forge his own way of life in a more subtle way than she is -- and who knows if he'd even understand. and yes, the aversion to magic/illusion baffles me as well because CLEARLY LOKI WOULD WIN ALL THE BATTLES. especially at the end of the film, where it's like.... is loki only fighting with a spear because he thinks that would make it a "real fight"? because he wants to give thor a chance? because it's a cry for help and he really doesn't want to win at all? because he's too angry to wield magic? WHAT?? (the obvious answer is: so thor can win and the film can have an narratively satisfying ending free from obvious ethical conflict, LOLOL oh god.)

    4. ye olde style costumes + super futuristic tech is a time-honoured tradition of sci-fi, and i embrace it. AND HEY, maybe it's just retro fashions! whatever. it's never really made clear what relation movie!thor has to earth!god!thor's myth WITHIN THE MOVIE ITSELF, anyway, and i can't be bothered unknotting that mess right now. ;D

    5. i can't remember what stan lee's cameo was in thor, but i recall it was something really lulzy...? i always notice them because they are SO obvious, i fucking love them. apart from the fact that he's BFFs with hugh hefner, which is gross.

    6. I TOTALLY WANT TO REWATCH THIS MOVIE because i actually only ever saw it once, AND ALSO after i saw it i didn't really even think about it -- i only started thinking about it like two months after i saw it, lol. THIS IS ALL TUMBLRS FAULT FOR CONTINUOUSLY EXPOSING ME TO .GIFS OF LOKI'S SAD SAD SADFACE.

    7. Let's not front, the chances of thor wearing underwear are like, NIL.

    8. haider ackermann is the only designer i can imagine shelling out for if i had the money. most other designers i like are either way too impractical OR i could get similar clothes for cheaper/get them made (or are Mary Katrantzou, who i love passionately and yet cannot imagine anyone actually... wearing in real life...) but haider ackermann is PERFECTION.

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  3. Frigg's cape pleats made me think of nerve cells more than anything.

    It's Coulson takes Thor's cape in stride. It's even flashier than Iron Man armor.

    I LOVE Loki's antelope helmet. He needs to top Thor's cape somehow. I was trying to think if there's any animal symbolism attached, but I just came up with antelope...gazelle...mountain goat possibly.

    Sif owns my heart. I'm waiting for a female warrior/hero who has prominent muscles on screen though (unless I'm forgetting a movie).

    Thor concept art is gorgeous. *w* Sif's hoodie makes me think that she's about to do boxing training. And that's a lotta hammers.

    Nolan better not screw up Catwoman or Marion's role. @_@

    My other thoughts probably got lost in the awesomeness of this post and the feminist Thor article. Now to google Ackermann.

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  4. coulson is the bomb. SON OF COUL. i love him. i hope they give him a bigger role in avengers.

    loki's helmet is probably meant to be goaty? there's a bunch of goats in norse myth. maybe he even HAS a goat-horn helmet in myth, i'm not sure. i do know that the whole "horned helmet viking" thing is pretty much apocryphal though, so who knows.

    a lot of women just don't put on visible muscle, even if they work out all day long. although there is an action movie coming out next year starring a female MMA fighter in the lead role (can't remember the movie, but i think it co-stars Fassbender as a guy who the trailer clearly marks for death in the second act).

    i haven't got a lot of optimism for nolan's catwoman -- HOWEVER, i do expect to enjoy the movie, and i also have a lot of respect for anne hathaway, so who knows.

    ACKERMANN IS AMAZING. i actually did a post about him a few weeks ago, when i was still reviewing the most recent Fashion Week. you should be able to find it using the fashion week tag on this blog.

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  5. 1. Aw, I liked Odin a lot. He was flawed--hugely, hugely so (not telling Loki what he is, letting himself favor Thor implicitly if not explicitly, and yeah, he was far from perfect as a kingly leader). But he genuinely cared about his kids and he wasn't shy about telling them. None of this stiff upper lip, men don't show their feelings, it's all gleaned from the fact that I didn't drown you at birth mode of fathering. I found that really refreshing.

    5. Stan Lee was in the redneck hammer in the crater sequence. He was driving the truck that tried to pull the hammer out.

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  6. In a movie filled with with great costumes, my favourite thing will always be that Jane and Darcy are dressed like actual women. It's sad that that is so unusual.

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  7. HAVE YOU SEE ON THE WAY TO THOR'S HAMMER? I bet Loki could descend from the heavens on a unicorn wearing a fez and he wouldn't bat an eyelash.

    From female athletes I've seen, you can normally see the muscle? Sif's arms looks like skin and no biceps. Gratned she comes from a magical place with magical weapons, but it'd be nice if her physique fit like her clothes (I mean, Columbiana?!).
    I looked up the trailer, and WOW badass, weird cast assortment, and great job dying Magneto.

    When I watch I'm gonna try not to compare, but Pfeiffer's catwoman is pretty damn awesome.

    I took a look, and those slippers seem pretty interesting, though not much more practical than heels. XD And the colors, and the JACKETS. *_*

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  8. I love your blog! Your discussion and links around the pictures is great.

    I'm still not really clear what those little shields on the torso are for, though. Decoration, I guess.
    I wonder if they're not a nod to the Viking tortoise/turtle brooches? They were big oval brooches that women used to fasten their clothing with - picture a dress with over-the-shoulder straps, and the brooches as two buttons pinning the shoulder straps to the front of the dress. (see http://metaldetectingworld.com/viking_tortoise_fibula.shtml or http://www.strongbowsaga.com/showwik.asp?WikID=39 for some pictures).

    I mean, the brooches are definitely a female clothing item, and you would only wear two, but to me his costume does bring them strongly to mind.

    I love the combination of retrofuturistic silhouette (like the capes the men wear, her gown has stiffened boning to hold it in shape at the top) and cheesy celtic knot/Lord Of The Rings elf-ish patterns down the sides.
    I love Queen Frigg's yellow cape/dress outfit too! If one were feeling charitable one could argue that the knotwork is kind of Nordic (there is a common motif called the "gripping beast" which became quite stylised with a long body twirled into knots) but it's quite a reach and I think the elves are probably a more likely inspiration. :)

    /historic geeking

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  9. Wonderful post! I believe I followed a link from Tumblr, and i just want to say about Loki not having any kids yet that Odin was riding Sleipnir when he came to rescue his sons and their party from Jotunheim. There's no mention in the movie where Sleipnir comes from...

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  10. OK LET'S GO WITH CANON. but i don't want loki to be a deadbeat dad/mum and have thoughtlessly left his offspring in the clutches of what he thinks is a terrible father! CONUNDRUM.

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  11. I HAVE. COULSON. IS THE BADDEST OF BADASSES.

    wellll... i guess they didn't bother making the actress work out too much because she isn't a hugely main character and doesn't have a GREAT deal of fight-scene focus. or possibly she just doesn't have good muscle definition and is in fact super super fit IRL anyway.

    I LOVE PFEIFFER CATWOMAN. SHE. IS. AMAZING.

    if those haider ackerman slippers had heels/backs (not high heels, that is) they would be sooo perfect. :(((

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  12. everyone who has seen Thor would watch an entire movie of darcy broing out with whoever, if such a thing existed. WHY DOESN'T THE MARVEL STUDIO STAND UP AND TAKE NOTICE OF THIS FACT.

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  13. Ooh, thank you for these links! I wonder if the original Thor artist (because the costumes aren't that different from old-school comic illustrations of the characters, as far as I know -- for Thor himself, at least) knew this, or whether they were just drawing something they thought looked vaguely "viking-y".

    would gripping beast be like an animal biting something, like the snakes that bite their own tails or bifurcated into celtic knots? you get a lot of that in faux-celtic stuff found in scottish tourish shops. ;)

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  14. I don't either! ;_; So I'm going with the belief that maybe he created Sleipnir by magic, not actually bore him, and that he's just a (magical) horse and that the Norse myths are just Midgardian fanfiction! Cause the alternative hurts to much.

    I got the feeling that movie Loki was supposed to be still quite young in Asgardin years, even though he may be a thousand years old by Midgardian time, so maybe too young to have kids yet.

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  15. HE DOESN"T PICK ONE OR THE OTHER DONUT FLAVOR. HE GETS BOTH LIKE A BOSS.

    true. and thor's hugeass muscles are probably the only important ones anyway ;D

    yeah the material looks so comfy, though i'd be too afraid of getting dirt on the little patterns. ;;

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  16. I too wonder if the original Thor artist had a flick through some textbooks but didn't pay too much attention. It would explain the Viking-esque costumes and the way that they aren't exactly brimming with historical accuracy!

    Yes, that's a gripping beast. They started out with recognisable bodies and over the years become more and more snake-like. Actually the Vikings had a fairly big influence on the British isles. In fact the Vikings established a camp at Dublin and their influence can be seen in Dublin's prominence lasting to this day. So there was a fair amount of cultural sharing going on.

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  17. looking at Heimdall, it suddenly became clear - all the armor is from World of Warcraft!
    The enormous, layered shoulderpads/spalders! The horned helms that should require counterbalances for normal movement! Plus, the warrior three are rocking the lower lever armor - you can tell because it's all reasonably close to the body and nothing's glowing. Loki starts out with lower level armor, and then he levels up! Giant horns, huge glowy staff - clearly epic gear!

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  18. hahaaa, this makes me wish i knew anything about world of warcraft, because unfortunately i have very little idea what you're talking about. but i'll take your word on it! :)

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  19. The helmet which Loki wears may be more goatish: you remember the Billy Goats Gruff, right? Norse mythology holds goats as the cleverest of animals. Well, the goats from the fairy tale were actually norse princes. With that line of thought, Loki is a very clever goat indeed.

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  20. I didn't realize how far back in your archives I'd have to go to find this post! You've written so much! Anyway, question- every since I first read this I've kind of wanted to draw Lady Loki wearing Haider Ackermann, and since you're the fashion expert is there any outfit in particular you think would be best?

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  21. I think I have an answer to Heimdall's seemingly excessive shoulder armor. Perhaps my analysis is too freudian, but it makes sense to me.

    In any society, people find particular body parts especially attractive, and oftentimes dress in such a way as to emphasize these attractive features. In a society that eroticizes the legs, for example, there's going to be alot of close-fitted and/or short bottoms, high heels, and other things that draw attention to or highlight the leg.

    One of the first things I noticed is that everyone in Asgard seems to be highlighting their shoulders and neck. The shoulders of the capes, the huge shoulder armour, wide cut shoulders on regular garments (Thor's cape, Heimdall's armor, Loki's leather coat) make the shoulders wider and thus draw the eye there. The dresses the women wear also highlight their neck and shoulders. Frigg's yellow ceremonial dress has rhinestones circling the shoulders and a section of contrasting material covering the shoulders and neck, which both draw attention to the shoulders. Her "house dress" leaves her shoulders bare with a fabric of contrasting texture circling the shoulders, again drawing the eye to the shoulders. The dress she wears at the feast at the end of the film again is bare shouldered with encircling decorative stones. At this same feast women are seen either wearing dresses like those of Frigg, with bare shoulders and attention-grabbing materials, or like that of Sif, whose dress covered part of her shoulders, but laid bare the rest and had a metal decorative piece along part of the collarbone.

    I actually felt that they used this concept of sexual display effectively to set Loki apart from the other Asgardians. His cape emphasizes his shoulders but not nearly as much as it Thor's does, and his coat, while it does emphasize the shoulders, it also emphasizes the waist, which other peoples' clothes don't seem to do (except for Sif's armour, which, while I agree it looks a little functional, to me it still oozes "metal corset" and fanservice). Also, while Loki doesn't play up his shoulders quite as much as the others, he does play up one of his features just as much as the others play up their shoulders. When he wears tight pants, he really wears tight pants. Particularly in the scene where he is king and approached by Sif and The Warriors Three, I really hope the intent was to draw the eye to his crotch, because they certainly did. And perhaps this is pushing it, but everyone else has short ram's horns on their helmets and Loki has long ibex horns on his. He has the biggest horns in Asgard.

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  22. I was saddened by the fact that Darcy was not in the Avengers

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  23. where in the movie does it say that he favors Thor, really....
    Thor is the eldest, so naturally he is the heir by default, but from what I actually saw in the movie, Loki was never an outcast by anyone's choice but his own. When Odin and Thor are both out of commission, nobody makes a problem out of Loki taking the throne. . Nobody even knew he was jotun (or that he was adopted) and he's never treated as any less for it.

    I kinda lost all sympathy for Loki, not just because it was his own stupidity that led to his downfall at the end of the movie, but because when Thor learns his lesson, Loki still tries to murder him, and then tries to commit genocide against his own kind.


    Quite honestly, if Loki hadn't been such an idiot, he would have let Thor work out his issues on earth, then calmly (pretended to) help him out in coming back. And suddenly you have Thor and Thor's friends as Loki's loyal followers. (since none of them had any issues with Loki), and Thor as Loki's right hand man. Not like Thor would have wanted to deal with the boring day to day stuff of ruling.



    But instead Loki screwed himself over.

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  24. Wait...so does that make Loki a frost mage?

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