Alota people remember Loki as the bad guy, right? I take issue with this kinda thinking, for a few reasons. First off, at best people are going off of reading old ass translations of a “myth,” but more likely they’re remembering seeing the Thor movie this past summer. No one was actually there to see the whole story, like I was. The other thing is to call Loki a “bad guy” is an over simplification. Bad guys were common back then. This was Asgard in its heyday, a realm built on war. We had plenty of bad guys. Loki wasn’t that. This is a guy who stood against us Aesir on his own, and did some damage. The balls you would need to do that? You gotta ask “what would motivate someone to do that?” It’d hard not to think the guy had a good reason. That maybe it was justified, to an extent.
Most people think the whole thing started when Baldur died, and I suppose for alota people it did. But were talking about Loki’s side here, and for him it started a lot earlier. See cuz he was different from the start. Now in Asgard, pretty much everyone is Aesir. Odin, Thor, Heimdallr, all the big names were Aesir. Then there were a few Vanir like Freyr as part of a treaty back in the day. But Loki was a Jotunn, only one in the realm, and Jotunn and Aesir was bitter rival. I mean people hated them, we all did. Hell I did too, I can admit that. But Odin said he was cool, and that meant no one would complain. Odin was in charge back then after all, no one questioned him.
Now that’s not to say everybody loved the guy. I mean to be honest we were all kinda dicks. At the time it seemed ok though, like he deserved it or something. You have to understand that this was a different time. You didn’t have the whole Sherlock, Doctor Who, House characters. Being a cocky genius wasn’t cool back then, it was annoying. I guess you could say Loki was way, way, way before his time.
Anyways, like I was saying, people were dicks to him. I remember this one time, his guy bet that he could build a new castle in three years with no one’s help which would be impossible. But Loki convinced Odin to let the guy use his horse. The guy got so close to doing it that Odin flipped shit at Loki. Odin made him “distract” the horse by becoming a mare and hitting on him. It did stop the guy from finishing the castle in time, but Loki ended up getting pregnant from the whole thing. This was with Sleipnir, the eight legged horse, not any of his other kids. Loki had three others, all of which were messed up in some way, and ended up having to be kicked out of Asgard. Jormungandr was a giant snake, which kept picking fights with Thor, and got sent to Midgard. Hel was half corpse and was sent to look after the underworld. Last was the wolf Fenrir, who bit off Tyr’s hand and got chained up outside the city. Now that I think about it, I don’t really remember how Loki felt about that. I guess we just didn’t really care at the time.
Now I’m pretty sure this next part was the last straw for Loki. Once again he was being a smartass and got into a bad bet. It was something about getting two different dwarf families to compete to see who could make the coolest shit for the Aesir. I don’t remember which side made what but this is where Freyr’s boar and boat, Sif’s hair, and Odin’s spear came from. One side ended up winning it when they presented Thor with that awesome hammer Mjolnir, which meant Loki lost I guess. Apparently Loki bet the dwarf his head, but being the sly devil he was, he explained that he could not take his prize without damaging his neck, which he had no rights to. So instead the dwarf just got pissed and sewed Loki’s mouth shut. We all laughed at him as he stormed out. Me too, though I wish I hadn’t cuz I saw his face. I still remember it. He was rip shit.
Remembering all this, its kinda no wonder what happened next. This was when Baldur got his new invulnerability powers, so everybody was just goofing off, throwing shit at him and watching it bounce off dealing no damage. Now realize everyone loved Baldur. He was just a really chill dude. No one had any complaints with the guy. Though I guess Loki must have had one cuz he hunted down the one thing that could still hurt him, mistletoe I guess, and tricked that poor blind bastard Hod into shooting Baldur full of the stuff. Everyone was just stunned. I mean we just watch everyone’s best weapons bounce off of him, and now he was killed by mistletoe. Everyone took it really hard. I remember at is funeral, so one was dickin’ around and Thor kicked him straight onto the pyre. Odin, who was Baldur’s dad, sent someone on Sleipnir to hunt down Hod after and kill him. Maybe it was just his original awkwardness, but we all thought we knew that Loki was involved.
Nobody really found out what happened till awhile later. We were all at some party; I think it was at Njord’s place. We were all having a good time at first, but just like old times someone started hassling Loki and giving him shit. Now Loki was really drunk at this point, and he just flips out. He starts just ragging on every one there, every guy was a bitch and every girl was a slut. Maybe it was cuz he was drunk that people humored him as long as they did, but eventually Thor got up to try to kick him out but Loki started to leave on his own. But just as he left he muttered some crack about Baldur, and was gone.
At this everybody just lost their shit. I got out of hand fast. I don’t remember who started it but people were planning on hunting him down. I kinda tried calming them down but it wasn’t happening, so I went home. Maybe I should have tried harder, but I can’t change what happened, which I found out about later. Apparently they chased him as far as the river, where he almost lost them by tuning into a fish, but I guess they had nets or something, I don’t know. Then Odin, who was like Loki’s best friend, came over and a chained him against a rock. H then strung up a snake above him so that its venom would drip down into his eyes. I guess the logic here was so he was too distracted to think of a way out of there, but honestly it just sounds cruel. Thankfully his wife stayed by his side. She’s still with him now trying to catch the venom in a bowl. But that think can only hold so much right?
I don’t’ know, maybe I could have done something. I honestly didn’t realize how bad things were till it was too late. I still think about him, during the “earthquakes.” That’s the mortal term for those tremors that crop up in the ground when he’s fighting his binds down there where they left him. I don’t know, at least now his side of the story is out there, ya know. Seems like the least I could do I guess.