Masynn Acheson page layout designer
The first thing most think of when the name Loki is mentioned is mostly likely Marvel Comics or the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). However, the version of Loki presented by Marvel at large is vastly different than the Loki of Norse legend and myth. For one, most descriptions put Loki as having red hair and a variety of eye colors from his being a giant, not a god as the others were. The gods of Norse myth were divided into two groups: the Aesir, and the Vanir. A very simplified distinction between the two is that the Vanir tended to be more nature based and the Aesir were heavily centered around war and almost what modern society was like to them in many ways. Aside from the gods, giants, or Jotuns, were remarkably similar in nature and origin but the key differences were a deviation in powers, longevity, appearances in many ways, and the hatred the two groups had for each other.
The one thing that is eerily similar between the two versions of Loki is that that he eventually became the villain through terribly similar reasons. He became the villain not because he was inherently bad, but because of circumstance and the treatment of the other gods towards him. This mistreatment eventually led him to become hateful towards the gods, turning against them and doing whatever was in his powers to make life harder for them in retaliation. However, while Loki and Thor are as close as brothers in the myths before the falling out, Loki was not related to him through birth but was the foster brother of Odin (Crossley-Holland, XXIX). Loki and Thor were a pair hardly seen leaving the other’s side on many adventures. Up until the stories of The Death of Baldur and Loki’s Flyting, he remained loyal to the gods until the punishments issued by them for his mischief drove him over the edge.
He was seen helping the gods on many occasions of his own will, such as when he helped to get the wall around Asgard, Home of the Aesir, by tricking a giant into doing the task for free and ending up paying a steep price. In order for the deal to work, he had to distract the stallion the giant was using to help mine and transport the stone, and Loki did this by turning into a mare and… distracting the stallion until the giant was not going to be able to finish the wall in time to get the rewards he wanted. The price Loki paid was him giving birth—yes you read that right—to an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir who became the war horse of Odin (Crossley-Holland, 9-14). Then when he had realized how upset he had made Sif, goddess of grain and fertility, in cutting off her hair (with some arguing beauty as well), he got help from dwarves to craft some of the mightiest treasures known to the Norse pantheon. This included golden hair spun from the finest gold to replace Sif’s ruined hair, Thor’s famous hammer Mjolnir, Odin’s prized spear Gungnir, a vessel named Skidbladnir for Freyr that could be folded to be small enough to fit into a pocket, and several more (Crossley-Holland, 48-53).
The punishments given were for his mouth to be sewn shut for tricking the dwarves, leaving his mouth permanently scarred. His three “monstrous” children, Fenrir, Hel, and Jormungand, were bound or trapped in different realms until Ragnarök would happen. He was overall scorned by many for his use of his famous Silver Tongue, for being a giant instead of a true god, and many other slanders and insults. In the end, once he was found out to be behind the death of the beloved Baldur in his jealousy, two of his sons were murdered in front of him. One of them being turned into a wolf and killing the other. Then the entrails of his son-turned-wolf were used to bind Loki to a rock and be positioned so his head constantly had poison dripped into his face and eyes by a giant serpent poised above him. He was a trickster by nature but turned cold and cruel by the cards life dealt to him.
References Used:
Kevin Crossley-Holland’s The Norse Myths