I’m just randomly watching Thor here tonight — it was actually more my nephew and my mother’s idea, I’m just chilling in the lounge while they do — and now I’m having Stupid Father Feels. And this gifset isn’t helping. You see that lower right one? There’s just such a strange look in Laufey’s eyes. And I know it’s not canonically true in the final cut of the film, but in one of the earlier scripts when Loki goes to Laufey he is told that he is Laufey’s bastard son. In the film it’s never stated outright that Laufey realises who Loki is, but I like to think he DID know. Which makes the look in his eyes in that last .gif kind of disturbing. I mean…ah, here’s the script:
LAUFEY Ah, the bastard son. I thought
Odin had killed you. That's what I
would have done. He's as weak as
you are.
LOKI No longer weak. I now rule Asgard,
until Odin awakens. Perhaps you
should not have so carelessly
abandoned me.
This gives Laufey pause.
LAUFEY Or perhaps it was the wisest choice
I've ever made. I will hear you.
This just gives that look such context, to me. Because sure, he’s shocked that Loki turned on him after making the offer in the film’s cut, but…that Loki would choose Odin over himself? Considering his Darwinistic talk, and the fact he left Loki to die, why SHOULD Loki favour him over the man who raised him? I suppose there’s the sense that Loki must hate Odin, to let the frost giants in, but then there’s a sense of bloodkin here I find interesting. Laufey accepts Loki on the basis of blood relation, just as Loki rejects his entire life based on the same.
…ah, dammit, I have a point here somewhere. I think it is this: Laufey seems rather stunned by the way his son turns on him, even given everything that has happened to the poor little bastard. And it’s likely due to the fact both Asgard and Jotunheimr seem to be stuck on the idea that blood is thicker than water. Which really doesn’t bode well for anything Odin had hoped to achieve by taking Loki, and to some extent likely explains why he ended up hiding Loki’s nature from him — not because Loki was intrinsically of no use to him in a political sense. It was more that Odin realised taking Loki was never going to enable diplomacy, but rather than return him to a realm that had already rejected him, Odin kept him as his own son and lied to him not because he wanted to hurt him, but because he wanted to protect him.
Speaking of Odin, I’ve always been one of those people who kind of wanted to smack the guy at the end of the film for telling Loki NO when his emotionally unstable son was in a particularly vulnerable place, both physically and mentally. I did think Odin was entirely correct, and we all know that Loki can’t handle the truth, but…in a terrible way, it’s just the way Odin tests his sons. The whole of the damn movie is Odin teaching Thor a lesson in what is a fairly hazardous fashion, considering the sheer number of times Thor could have been killed in his mortal form (especially given the humiliation conga he walks, what with the van-slaloms, Darcy and her taser, and then the hospital thing). But this is how he tested Thor’s worth. In the end, then, is it so surprising that Odin would test Loki in a similarly precarious fashion?
Basically, Odin is asking Loki to take responsibility for his actions, to stop lying and accept that he was wrong. Because Loki says this was all for him, and for everyone else. He never once says it was for himself, and again there’s a nice little extract from that earlier script which I think, while partially embellished for Laufey’s benefit, still says a lot about Loki’s bleeding heart:
LOKI When all is done, we will have a
permanent peace between our two
worlds. Then I, the bastard son,
will have accomplished what Odin
and Thor never could.
So, when he dangles from the Bifrost by the handle of Gungnir (something which I am led to understand is an object upon which unbreakable vows might be sworn; makes it rather ironic that he called himself “Odinson” while wielding it to kill his biological father) Loki is afraid of what he is done. He’s hiding the truth of it from himself and everyone else. By saying “No, Loki,” Odin is giving him a choice. He is testing Loki’s ability to change, to be worthy of the forgiveness and clemency he might otherwise be able to offer (through the agency of Thor himself, I believe, considering it is Thor through Gungnir, the staff of the king, who is the last person between Loki and the fall).
Loki makes his choice. And Loki lets go.
…so. Um. Yeah. It might seem what Odin did was unecessarily cruel or mistimed, but in the end…it strikes me as an Asgardian thing to do. They are a warrior society, and for all they seem immortal they live and die by the blade. In that, perhaps it is only appropriate they can prove themselves only when the choice has such immediate and terrible consequences.
tl;dr: Odin had a point. And the way he made it was entirely in character. And so was the way Loki answered it. I just…ah, shit, I need to go cry in a corner for a bit, k?