A lot of characters and stars have come and gone across the MCU’s lifespan to date, and very few of them have stuck around from Phase One up until Phase Five. Arguably the most notable of these Marvel mainstays is Tom Hiddleston‘s Loki, who has enjoyed one of the most transformative arcs of anyone in the entire cinematic universe.
From sympathetic villain to full-on world-conquering villain to anti-hero to actual hero, Loki has been and done everything across his 13 years and counting in the MCU, but why is it that the God of Mischief has struck such a chord with fans and audiences around the world? Hiddleston himself had much to say about this when asked about the malleability and the immortality of Loki as a character, crossing the Norse myths to the pages of Marvel comics to the present-day. The Thor actor told ComicBook.com:
“I’ve realized that, in human consciousness, that’s who Loki is. Loki is this ancient, mythic character who, in our collective mythology, represents the trickster, the transgressor, the boundary-crosser, the shape-shifter. Somebody who’s mercurial and spontaneous and unpredictable, who will always confound your expectations and wriggle out from underneath your certainties and convictions. Someone who we need and [who] is necessary.”
“Maybe Loki escaping death a couple of times is sort of an emblem of who he is in our culture. I spend a lot of time thinking about Loki. You can probably tell.”
Tom Hiddleston arguably knows his character better than any other MCU star
That’s a bold claim, I know. You could easily argue that honor belongs to Robert Downey Jr. instead and I would gladly listen to your argument, but at this point Hiddleston’s boundless enthusiasm and adoration for his character and deep understanding of what makes Loki tick has been proven again and again.
Most recently, it was Hiddleton himself who came up with the idea for Loki to quote himself from 2011’s Thor at the end of the Loki season 2 finale, which saw the character finally sacrificing himself for the greater good. The dialogue choice was such a perfect encapsulation of Loki’s complete character arc — not to mention proof that Hiddleston has an eidetic memory for all of his prior MCU appearances — that it’s genuinely shocking that it wasn’t scripted.
Loki’s place in the MCU is in flux right now, of course, seeing as he’s currently the God of Time and we’ve been told that the Loki TV show is over. With Hiddleston’s continued commitment to the role and this universe, though, Marvel had better bring him back soon. Luckily it sounds like he might be due a return in Avengers 5.
