Loki: Agent of Asgard #3 - "Your Life Is a Story I've Already Written"

[arbre_rieur]

'How the truth can hurt -- and how it can be used as a weapon -- is a theme that seems so obvious now that I can't believe I didn't intend to have it in there from the start. I mean, In "Loki: AoA" the truth is literally a sword, for goodness' sake. I have no idea where my mind was.' -- Al Ewing



Old Loki travels back in time to the Old Realms, where he becomes the traveling companion of a young Odin and gets him into a blood feud with some innkeepers.













One day, the hero Sigurd stays the night at Regin's inn, and the two make a deal:



Sigurd slays Fafnir, and Bram, having been plunged through the dragon's truth-magicked blood, gains the power to pierce any lie.

Comments

[md84]

It's kind of weird thinking of Old Loki, Kid Loki, and Teen Loki as different people. They are the same person, just with different sets of memories. Is a person really nothing more than the sum of their memories?

And Teen Loki receiving a sword forged to be Asgard's bane? That's gonna end well.

[darth_cloudo]

One could argue that their circumstances and therefore their motivations and what they chose to become were different. Does that make them different people? That's a really complicated question which I have no idea how to answer. Kind of reminds me of the Ship of Theseus question. The two main issues I can think of are:

1) Do people change with time? If someone changes drastically, are they still the same person they were? Is someone the same person they were 2 years ago?
2) How much does circumstance affect a person (nature vs nurture, I guess). There was a scene from (I believe) Avatar the Last Airbender where someone admits that while they're a good person now, but they may not have been if their circumstances had been different.

Who's to say that kid loki would not have eventually become old loki? Or that old loki would have become more like kid loki (except status quo, but ignoring that).

[cainofdreaming]

This reminds me of a quote from Planescape: Torment:

"If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear - whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can. I’ve seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag's heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me."

I think that applies here too. Old Loki believed that he couldn't change, that he'd always remain Loki, so he couldn't change. Not without committing reincarnation. Kid Loki believed in making himself better than what his old self had been, so there's a good chance he would have been. He had other things going for him besides that too, like actually having feelings of brotherly love and such. Conscience. Friendship. And so forth.

Not that any of those are a guarantee in the literary world, or real one for that matter, but he had quite a bit better chances for avoiding the Old Loki's fate than Old Loki ever had.

[timefire]

Well, it's been a while since I read the origin of Kid Loki, but iirc it is a plot point that Kid Loki /didn't/ have the same memories as Adult Loki - Kid Loki is essentially reset to his childhood self, back when he was still a good brother to Thor and not feuding with anybody. He didn't have any memory of being a supervillain, only second-hand accounts of "Hey, remember that time you tried to invade New York?" and similar.

(As to your second point, I think it'd be hilarious if the sword's curse is now null and void because the Aesir are living in "Asgardia" instead :P )

[md84]

Would you believe there's a TV Trope entry covering this too? "Memory Gambit".

And yeah, it would be funny if the sword's curse can't actually hurt anyone since "Asgard" is technically already gone.

[timefire]

so Tvtropes literally has /everything/ :P