Jiren
Patti Mayonnaise
Hearts Bayformers
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Post by Jiren on Oct 25, 2012 21:05:28 GMT -5
I wasn't planning on it BUT it was mandtory in regards to what I read then I would have gone for it (I read Countdown & Flashpoint and I'm still alive). But seeing as It's not relevent I can ignore it (YAY) Your brain will thank you. .......Flashpoint wasn't that bad. OK i may have been a bit harsh on Flashpoint but it still pisses me off. Talk about wasted opprtunity
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Legion
Fry's dog Seymour
Amy Pond's #1 fan
Hail Hydra!
Posts: 22,715
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Post by Legion on Oct 25, 2012 21:15:37 GMT -5
I don't agree with that interpretation (although I wholeheartedly subscribed to it prior to reading the final issue), but I will happily catch up on YA in retrospect if that turns out to be the case. Right now, though, interpreting it as I do, I feel ill when I look at him. So it wouldn't be pleasant for me to try to read any more. Well. I refuse to look on the glum side of things. Mainly because if, as people are suggesting, all we have left is Evil Loki, than YA is telegraphed to the extreme. All we will be doing is waiting for the axe to fall and the jig to be up. Gillen doesnt strike me as that obvious a writer, and thus I firmly expect more grey and more fight than people are giving Loki credit for. I outlined my argument better on CBR forums. I convinced people to agree with me.
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Johnny B. Decent
Patti Mayonnaise
Had one once
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Post by Johnny B. Decent on Oct 25, 2012 21:41:20 GMT -5
I don't agree with that interpretation (although I wholeheartedly subscribed to it prior to reading the final issue), but I will happily catch up on YA in retrospect if that turns out to be the case. Right now, though, interpreting it as I do, I feel ill when I look at him. So it wouldn't be pleasant for me to try to read any more. Well. I refuse to look on the glum side of things. Mainly because if, as people are suggesting, all we have left is Evil Loki, than YA is telegraphed to the extreme. All we will be doing is waiting for the axe to fall and the jig to be up. Gillen doesnt strike me as that obvious a writer, and thus I firmly expect more grey and more fight than people are giving Loki credit for. I outlined my argument better on CBR forums. I convinced people to agree with me. Unfortunedly, it's all the Status Quo. Loki is always going to be a a villain, it seems.
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Post by Piccolo on Oct 25, 2012 21:45:47 GMT -5
I guess I just think... like. Spoiler-cutting... {Spoiler}I do think Old!Loki is all that's left in there. I think he DOES want to change, sort of, in his wistful, it's-everyone-else's-fault-not-mine kind of way, and thinks taking the credit and relationships Kid!Loki worked so hard to put together is going to make it easier for him. Because if it's the externals that are forcing him into this role that he despises, changing them should be enough to change him. (Which isn't the case, and is why he'll lose. There's also the metatextual of Loki looking back at the audience and saying that "none of US have the power to end the story like that" or whatever it was, the word bolded, and the references to "they won't let you," implying that the direction of Loki is pretty fixed.)
If it hadn't been explicitly stated that Ikol was nothing of kid!Loki (and to be honest, I still don't even get how that's possible), I would've assumed this was a merge, not a kill-the-soul-and-take-the-shell. But Gillen wrote that for a reason. One reason could be to make this a true sacrifice, to test whether Kid!Loki would do it even knowing what it would mean. But why? He'd already proven himself good at this point. The only other reason I can think of is that it's because it's intended to be the truth of the story, and the author knew no one would assume it if it wasn't stated (because it's so counterintuitive/unexpected... I think most people thought Ikol was an aspect, not a wholly separate thing).
It's a pessimistic ending, certainly, but I don't think it would be bad writing to end the story on a bleak note. It's a complete story now, a little encapsulated gem, that is perfect as it is. I also don't think it necessarily means that YA is going be a badly written story... it could just be that a Loki character journey is no longer the point, and that the other characters will be the focus while he's playing a purely antagonistic role. Their journeys may be the story, and will be told with all the considerable talent that Gillen put into crafting little Loki's.
For me, it's just that I was going to follow YA in the first place with the intention of continuing to follow little Loki's development. Since I interpret the final issue as him being erased from existence and never to return (although I think old!Loki probably keeps his memories and experiences), the character I would be following... is the guy who manipulated this sweet kid into a deathtrap, forcing him to commit suicide, sending him to his loved ones one by one and telling him he'd forfeit everything if he told them the truth. He's a sick and twisted freak. I don't even know if I'd be in the mood to watch his character arc even if he did have one in YA. Like I said, I don't even want his comeuppance. I just don't want to see him or think about him.
If this is a psychological rather than a literal thing, and old!Loki was reintegrating Kid!Loki (forcibly, but still), and the story is about becoming a better person while acknowledging all parts of yourself, then the murder is metaphorical, both parts still exist, and I'd be interested in watching how this new!Loki grows. I just... really don't feel like Gillen wrote that ending. This felt like much more of an open-and-shut return to the status quo, a way to close up the toybox of JiM and keep those characters perfectly frozen in amber, just as they are. Maybe it'll become more clear over the next few days, but that's what it looks like to me now. Waaaay tl;dr. Again, credit to Gillen for making me think this much. It's a twisty, layered little story.
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Legion
Fry's dog Seymour
Amy Pond's #1 fan
Hail Hydra!
Posts: 22,715
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Post by Legion on Oct 25, 2012 22:03:52 GMT -5
No.
Sorry.
But no.
Kid Loki and Adult Loki were always the same person.
The Loki we have no is the kid body with the adult mind, but with the kid experience and the kid memories as well.
We dont have a return to the status quo, but we dont have the innocent kid either. We have something in-between.
There is a reason that the IKOL feathers turned white, and a further reason that Lil'Loki asked Brunn about what happens when you eat a soul.
There was never a suicide, never a manipulation, because they were never two beings, just the one. Lil'Loki was always adult Loki, just a more innocent version. He has now lost that innocent and accepted his role in things, but that doesnt mean that he is evil, or that he has to be evil eventually, just that he has to cause mischief, and mischief doesnt have to be evil.
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Post by Piccolo on Oct 25, 2012 22:09:28 GMT -5
Again, that's what I thought we were going to get, and that's a perfectly optimistic ending... if that's what it was. And maybe I should re-read those pages to be sure, but I'm reasonably sure we were told they were separate and that kid!Loki was going to cease to exist entirely, hence the erasure of his fears, hence the nullification of the fear crown.
It doesn't make sense to me why they would've been separate beings, obviously. I totally agree that it would make more sense for them not to be. I just think we were told that they were. I do like the idea that the white feather is signaling optimism for the future, though.
(I thought little Loki was asking Brunn about that in the hopes that there was a way he could suicide without giving old!Loki his body to run around in and deceive everyone with. All he needed to do to neutralize Mephisto was cease to exist... it didn't have to be at old!Loki's hands, if he could get it done elsewhere.)
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Johnny B. Decent
Patti Mayonnaise
Had one once
Everybody's Favorite Arizonian.
Posts: 31,072
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Post by Johnny B. Decent on Oct 26, 2012 0:18:39 GMT -5
There was never a suicide, never a manipulation, because they were never two beings, just the one. Lil'Loki was always adult Loki, just a more innocent version. He has now lost that innocent and accepted his role in things, but that doesnt mean that he is evil, or that he has to be evil eventually, just that he has to cause mischief, and mischief doesnt have to be evil. Except that now he has centuries of bad memories and probable mental illness from Old Loki. The reason why he was good was he was free from all those years of evil, and now it's back again.
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Post by Ryushinku on Oct 26, 2012 6:46:33 GMT -5
Exxxcellent. Theavengers. Mmmmascot.
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