Loki and His Glorious Purpose (7/28/2021)

Hi there! The first blog post, and what do I blog about? Loki. Of course! Marvel just finished their series run on Disney+ and it was FANFREAKINTASTIC. We loved it at our house anyways, where Loki the God, Loki the comic, and Loki the MCU anti-hero are all popular amongst our crowd. Why? Let me tell you why, and thus, tell you a bit about myself as well.

Loki isn’t a Villian. Not to us anyways, he is an anti-hero. You love to watch others hate on him, but you also carry compassion and respect in your heart for him. He came from darkness, despair, nothingness, and he is a survivor. That part, that’s the part I understand so well. See, Loki was adopted. At birth in the MCU, he was born to the Frost Giants, to King Laufey of Jotunheim. He was born a prince, but he was born small, considered a runt of the family, or with a disability one might say, as he would never be the size of those in his family. His father thought he was a mistake, or broken, and left him as an infant to die, abandoned, cold, alone. His Father was a king, he could have made Loki’s size acceptable had he wished to, but he didn’t- he left him to die. Where he was found by Odin. Odin had just bore havoc on Jotunheim, killing many of Loki’s people, when he found the baby. A moment of compassion brought Loki to live with Odin and his family, to be raised as his own. However he did so in secret. Odin used trickery, magic to make Loki’s skin match he and his families, so others wouldn’t question who Loki was, and told everyone, as well as Loki growing up, that Loki was his son just as his other children. Born into abandonment and then saved to live a life of deceit created a foundation in which Loki learned to survive. He thrived on mischief and trickery, learning the beautiful art of sorcery at the hands of his nurturing adopted mother. Becoming cunning and mischievous, he soon captured the hearts of many, both characters and moviegoers alike, as one moment he would battle and defeat his brother Thor using devious measures, and another, the gentle heart of the lost little boy would shine through his gaze, as one sensed his longing for love and acceptance. Odin, often controlling his world as he may, would often pit the boys against one another in competition for leadership, respect, and approval of his love. Both boys struggling to find their place in the world, the only difference being that one had a healthy and secure start to the world, and the other barely surviving and desperate to be fed and warmed and loved. So when things began to get difficult, it’s no surprise that they might respond to adversity a bit differently. Thor, facing various trials in his life becomes humbled, and learns to value the heart of the team and needing others. Loki, facing heartbreaking reality after learning about his history, reacts traumatically, lashing out at both his adopted Father and Mother, beginning a tide of events that eventually leads to his Mothers death. Paired with moments of rejection felt by both parents, Loki begins to self-sabotage as he makes mistake after mistake in his life, seeking to survive each turn of events. One might think he wants power and control, that’s what it looks like, but as happens for so many raised in traumatic situations, he seeks only to be validated, accepted, maybe even loved. “I only wanted to be your equal” he cries out to Thor at one point, when they battle one another for the throne. Maybe his equal in the receiving of love from their parents? A heart cry so often heard from adoptees around the world. See, I am not an adoptee. But their heart cry resonates so strongly with me. I was born to a mother who had fairly severe mental health difficulties. Thankfully, the first year of life we lived with my Grandparents, and my therapist and I hypothesize every day, it’s the only way I survived the attachment trauma I was raised in. My mother struggled to take care of herself, let alone an infant, but at some point became jealous of the bond my Grandmother had with her baby, and decided to move out. Ten years of fairly severe abuse and neglect led to her hospitalization for mental health needs, and I was placed with my Aunt. But my Aunt was pretty sick. So eventually, I was passed around between church members, and eventually stayed in a handful of youth shelters, until I entered the state system of care. I was placed in a children’s home that was the religion I had been raised by my mother at the age of 14. I remained there until I aged out at 18. While I was there, discussion of TPR/adoption options occurred, but I repeatedly saw my adopted friends return, their adoptions disrupted, and could see the pain in their eyes. I chose instead to age out, leaving alone, uncertain, and without a single financial support. Somehow I survived the next 10 years, where I eventually became stable, and slowly decided to go back to school. Did you know that less than 3% of fosters graduate college? Somehow I did. I’m not quite sure how, but one day at a time, one semester at a time, I made my way through undergraduate school and then graduate school where I became a social worker, and delved into the therapy world. Survival. I know it well. My trauma cousins, the adoptees who now speak up and advocate for their fellow adoptive friends and loved ones know it well too. Loki, a fictional character first written in comics by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber and drawn by Jack Kirby, knew it well too. It was survival that rang true in his bones and pushed him forward for more. So to be able to watch him gain insight, empathy, and even his “glorious purpose” towards the end of his MCU arc was fantastic. Where he and Thor drew closer, he gained his Fathers approval before Odin passed on, and he sacrificed himself for the good of his people in Infinity War, only to return in a timeline skip and find it all again, this humility of mankind, despite his Godlike nature. Watching Loki find himself again, was like sensing all over again what it was like to find the connection we have to our broken selves. When life begins with trauma, that early human connection becomes severed and broken, both the mother/child connection and the ability to find self within the mother, and finding it again is a journey that is often painful, heart rendering, and led by survival. But when we find ourselves, we find that glorious purpose we have been seeking all along, the purpose in loving ourselves and loving others, being a conduit of healing and change for our people. Whether we do it as fantastically as Tom Hiddleston, or not. Found this interesting? I got the opportunity to speak on the awesome podcast The Happiest Pod on Earth, on Leaning Into Loki's Journey 7/17/2021, right HERE. Check it out!