Hot and evil, but no woobie.

Not is season 2, for sure. But he did get plenty woobified later. And I think that's where a lot of folks here lost interest in him. Like Buffy, you like your villains death-ray-destroy-Metropolis evil, without any hint of sentimentality.

I don't need any inherent correlation between "fans of" and "empathise with", though.

I don't think there has to be, but I think there often is for many fans. Which is why your dash is so covered in Loki. We're all very sentimental.

I posed the questions of "what was his motivation/plan" on IO9, and pretty much no two people had the same answer.

That's surprising to me. I haven't seen Thor and I've only seen Avengers once (so far), but "conquer the earth and enslave humanity" seems pretty obvious. Since that's what he's says he's gonna do.

"what was his motivation/plan"

I think having seen Thor is actually a little necessary for that. Joss did a good job with showing the "conquer the earth and enslave humanity", but I think Thor shows more to his motivation. I'll leave you with something that was reposted by Fay, someone else's words, but I feel explains a lot for those of us who are Loki fans: [link]

Loki wasn't really the one in control in The Avengers. He was causing all the havoc and mischief and wanted to be king and get back at Thor. But the leader (the Other?) had some kind of control over Loki.

He threatened to hurt Loki so badly that pain would feel sweet.

I don't know if that added to Loki's anger and resentment. But he can't even attempt to take over the Earth and be a king without relying on someone else and being at their mercy.

I haven't seen Thor in awhile, but I think Loki resented being the second son. He wanted to be King and even if he was Odin's son that was never going to happen with Thor around. Finding out he was adopted just magnified all of that.

But the leader (the Other?) had some kind of control over Loki.

I think Loki was the first person that scepter was used on. It was used by the Other to communicate with Loki at the Other's will, not Loki's. We saw both Hawkeye and Don Blake get free of the scepter's control through "cognitive recalibration." What was Loki getting flung around by the Hulk and smashed into concrete other than another cognitive recalibration?

Hot and evil, but no woobie.

Yeah, same for me. And I have a long-standing fascination with villains. It's just that Loki doesn't hit my particular "Yay evil!" buttons, and I'm fascinated by how a lot of fandom has glommed onto him.

Part of it may be the woobie thing. I can see how Loki is an evil woobie who needs someone to understand him, but it isn't fangirl nip to me, because I want the villains I fangirl over to not be woobies. (That word has lost all meaning to me, now. Woobie woobie woobie.) I don't want to stroke their hair and comfort them, I want bad guys who gleefully cause mayhem and destruction because it's fun.

(Yes, I am an unrepentant Lestat fangirl. What?)

I had no clarity with Loki. He just seemed to be doing stuff to do stuff.

Loki = CHAOS! He likes fucking shit up. Chaotic evil all the way, baby.

I feel especially empowered to answer the question I posed yesterday, because I just got back from my second viewing. And...I didn't see Loki say he wanted to enslave humanity. Not in words like that, anyway. I mean, you can come and blow us up because you want to raze the planet, or maybe you want to use our manpower in your unobtainium mines, or you want us to be your batteries, or or or...

There's still no there there for Loki as far as I can tell. In fact, I came away from it thinking he did it all to get Thor back in the same place as him. It's the threat of destroying Earth that gets the massive effort made to send him across the void. It's the first time they've seen each other since the events in Thor, and how else was it going to happen?

For some reason, the dominion over Earth still came across really vague and futless, and it didn't all come together until Thor got zapped back.

So that's what I'm going to go with, but I also think it's still a weakness of the movie.

Other weaknesses, albeit trivial: not as much effort put into making Black Widow's stunts seamless--I only really noticed the stitches once for all the other heroes. Also, Tony making grunty faces when doing "strenuous" things in the suit. Those aren't your muscles working, Tony. That just looks kinda weird. When he was battered and in pain, sure, that made sense, but he got all exerty before that happened.

And...lo and behold, I recast Colin as Hawkeye and had a much better time.

I didn't purposefully spend most of yesterday rewatching Captain America with the intent of watching Avengers again first thing this morning, but that recency, combined with the fact that I wasn't in as much pain this time round, and it was a whole different movie. I noticed so many more things, and was much more affected. Humans on Avengers are clearly Hobbits in Middle Earth to me (which wouldn't surprise Tolkien one bit), and I got similarly weepy at our efforts in the middle of the super powered battle.

I think this movie *really* did force well. The massive strength and constitution of the Hulk and Thor and Loki and the enhanced constitution of Cap came across really well, better than in any superhero movie I've seen (note, haven't seen the Norton Hulk). I found that simply amazing.

And, Cap is weirdly my second favourite superhero on the big screen. Like, please fix Wolverine, because he's slipped to third place, and I'd never have predicted that happening. But Chris Evans emoted the fuck out of him, and I haven't been overwhelmed by nobility in fights in such a long time.

I think it was a really great character note that Cap was never concerned with an exit plan for any of his exertions. Not that he was kamikaze or acting with a angsty disregard for his safety, just that everything else was prioritised over his life. Just like how he went out in his movie. And, perhaps tellingly, that's Tony's arc in the movie--he's a bit regressed from his own flicks, and way high on himself at the start, but the final thing he does is with a similar focus on getting it done and no pause for survival instinct to kick in that Cap has displayed all the time he's been on screen, from him jumping on the grenade in his flick through the end here.

I really really liked it.

And Loki...still zero empathy. But he's a fun nutso.

Remind me in Thor--where's the point where they go yes THAT Thor and Loki, and everyone else accepts them as reasonable facsimiles of Norse gods? Because Natasha seemed pretty cavalier with that shorthand, and that doesn't seem very...her. Certainly not properly Soviet, anyway. But when Cap had his rejoinder of "one god", I was on his side. Also, in the middle of a huge fangirl fit, but whatevs.

Oh--another thing I disliked about how they did Black Widow--it was really effective when she was all gaspy and almost on the threshold of breakdowns in the initial interrogation and then with Loki, but it was undermined by the fact that we saw her pretty much that breathy and vulnerable looking in moments when she was alone. None of the guys had similar moments, and I didn't like that she did.

[redacted]

I don't think that Loki's reasons for trying to take over the Earth are very rational or mature. But Loki didn't come across as rational and mature, just trying to hurt his brother.