From BBC’s Merlin to Disney’s Hercules, mythology seems to have found its place in modern television. But how far do these adaptations stray from the legends from whence they came?
Let’s take a look at one particularly popular example; Marvel Studios’ Loki Laufeyson (he/him). Our classic grandiose villain with world domination as his ulterior motive, and the appropriately humiliating brotherly counterpart to Chris Hemsworth’s radiant (if slightly meatheaded) Thor. Loki is the sly trickster who always morphs into a glorified punching bag for the good guys at some point during every show. And, well, who’s complaining? His kind of character was built to be satisfactorily brought down—both metaphorically and literally speaking if you remember that scene where the Hulk smashes him into the floor of Stark Tower.
The real mythological figure of Loki (they/them)—presumably the basis for Marvel’s creation—was a bit different. Born to the goddess Laufey and the giant Farbauti, Loki is Odin’s sibling and Thor’s uncle. In case you’re thinking ‘wait, hold up,’ yes—in the Marvel version, Laufey is Loki’s giant father, and Odin his adopted dad. But I guess we can excuse some creative liberties because Marvel-Loki’s entire glorious purpose (heh) is based around daddy issues.
Mythology-Loki is the god of chaos, famously fluid in gender, morality, and physical form- in all but their personality, really. They’re a trickster at heart—Marvel got that right—and only do whatever they want to do. Marvel-Loki does technically have fluid morality if you look beyond the Thor films and to the Loki series, where he questions the ethics of governing timelines and so on. He’s pretty self-serving, which is myth-accurate, and there are a fair amount of tales about how Mythology-Loki’s utter lack of consideration led to their downfall, so my salty comment about punching bags wasn’t completely justified. But, well. You can’t expect me to write this entirely devoid of personal opinion, I suppose.
Now, I refuse to beat around the gender bush. Mythology-Loki (like Marvel-Loki) is a shapeshifter, and their gender presentation (and presumably identity, as much as we can tell from the use of pronouns in mythological texts) shifted pretty much constantly. But the shapeshifter bit is about where the similarities end. Marvel-Loki is pretty clearly and consistently a cisgender male, and though the studio made a weak attempt at making Loki genderfluid (hi, Sylvie), I think we all collectively agree to ignore it out of pity. It's a shame, though, really- can you imagine the CGI potential of a Loki with shifting gender presentation? The artists down at Disney would have a blast.
All things considered, I think it's safe to say that we probably shouldn’t count on modern TV for mythological accuracy. But it’s not all that bad! At least we can count on it for some good old slapstick. Go watch Thor: Ragnarok; put the mythologist in you aside and just laugh at some people being punched around for a bit. It’s great, I promise. Norse mythology doesn’t have enough of that.
Written by Zoya Mehta
Image from Thrillist
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