On those casting long shadows
- Anon
I think, oddly enough, baby Thor will end up surprisingly well adjusted.
Or maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising, because while Loki is definitely fucked in the head himself, he is intimately aware of how that happens. Like, he knows what it’s like to be compared to someone else and to not ever seem to be able to match up to that standard, so he’s going to do his damnedest to make sure little Thor never feels that way. That little Thor knows Loki loves him just as he is, and that he doesn’t have to strive to be anything he’s not.Â
Baby Thor will end up different, unavoidably, because of the change in circumstances and experiences. But more importantly, in terms of their relationship… original Thor had a pretty damn charmed life for basically his entire youth. That was good insofar as it contributed to his sunny disposition and his confidence and all his other strengths, but it meant that he had some huge blind spots, and it came as a shock when he had to confront his own flaws and their consequences.
This Thor will, I think, grow up not feeling like he needs to live up to that previous self but instead being aware of the ripples of those events. He is intuitive enough to sense Loki’s deep sadness and old wounds (no matter how much he tries to conceal them and pretend they don’t exist), and to know that his previous self contributed to that. And his older self was not him, precisely, so it’s just a little bit distant, just enough that he can be aware of it safely and without terrible guilt. But growing up with that awareness—that is the part of this upbringing that’s really different.
And it stays with him, changing over time as he grows. When he’s young, it is just that, an awareness: his own life is still mostly happiness, he is loved and cared for and protected, but there is also this distant stormcloud of past sorrows and mistakes, and though they are far off and beyond his understanding, he can taste them in the air like ozone. He can see them in how Loki reacts sometimes, or feel them in the things he knows Loki keeps from him. And what grows in him from it is just a little bit more caution, just a little bit more thoughtful hesitation.Â
There’s a while when he reaches adolescence (at which point Loki stops keeping any of their past conflicts secret from him, because it’s far better that Thor learn those tales from him rather than, Norns forbid, whatever he would find from old Midgardian news stories about those times) when Thor becomes morbidly obsessed with his older former self’s flaws and the things that went wrong between him and Loki. In accordance with his own rule, Loki tells him whatever he asks about as honestly as he can. When he figures out that Thor is using those stories for self-recrimination in this strange way, though, they have to have a talk. Loki insisting to him (with a ferocity that surprises Loki himself) that none of that was Thor’s fault; that it wasn’t even entirely his older self’s fault, and Loki was just as culpable. Thor answering that he still did the wrong things and so he needs to know about it so he can make up for it. Loki very carefully explaining that, no, he isn’t responsible for those things and he should not be trying to make amends for them. That he is responsible only for his own actions now.Â
Thor tearing up as he asks, “but what if I make the same mistakes again?”
Loki moving to comfort him and reassure him and untangle the tangle of worries he’s gotten himself into. “You won’t. You will almost certainly make new mistakes, but we will solve them when they happen, won’t we?”
And because this Thor has grown up the way he did, being raised by an adult Loki with his particular perspective, Thor lets himself be soothed and he accepts this answer and tries not to judge himself for the previous Thor’s past.Â
So, yeah. Surprisingly well adjusted under the circumstances, I’d say.