Character Highlight: Hela (Thor)

*Spoilers for Ragnarok.*

In this, the most important month on the Calypsan calendar, it’s not exactly a surprise that I rewatched Thor: Ragnarok recently. And while there will be some good opportunities for new Marvel stuff to talk about on the horizon, I’m currently biding my time waiting for season 2 of Loki to finish and The Marvels and Echo to come out. So, let’s get our villain on with Hela!

In the first two Thor films, Loki is framed as the black sheep of the family, the one with scheming tendencies and a fraught relationship with Odin. All that’s certainly true. He’s quite devious, with complex plots that get slowly revealed layer by layer. And he’s always resented Odin because he feels that Thor is treated better than him, but that animus gets cranked up to eleven after he learns that he’s really a Frost Giant that Odin took from Jotunheim when he was a baby. Finding out he’s part of the race that’s Asgard’s sworn enemy doesn’t go well for him, and he shifts from mischief to Machiavellian villainy.

It turns out, though, Loki isn’t Odin’s only messed-up kid with a lust for power and intense father issues. In Ragnarok, it comes out that Odin has a third child Thor and Loki never knew about: his oldest, Hela. Before either of them were born, Odin cast his daughter out, sealing her in Hel for millennia. It’s only minutes before his death that he’s able to warn Thor and Loki about her, and once he’s gone, there’s nothing holding her back. Hela emerges from her prison and immediately sets about reclaiming Asgard, which she feels is hers by right.

Over the course of the film, it’s revealed that Hela once served as Odin’s bloody right hand. She was the Goddess of Death, and together, she and her father conquered and killed across the Nine Realms. In present-day Asgard, this history has been painted over, hidden by Odin when he decided he wanted to reinvent himself as a benevolent king. He covered the frescoes much like he hid Hela away. “Where do you think all this gold came from?” she sneers at Thor, all too happy to twist the knife as she disillusions him of his view of their late father. Asgard’s wealth was built on the blood of civilizations, and once it had been won, Hela was discarded as an inconvenient reminder of Odin’s sins. She also notes, regarding Asgard’s riches, that Odin was “proud to have it, ashamed of how [he] got it.”

But while it’s certainly gross that Odin tried to erase all memory of his daughter, this doesn’t make Hela a sympathetic character. She’s not as complex as Loki, who does some wildly terrible things for nuanced motives but ultimately decides to stand with his brother before the end. She’s a being of rage with conquest in her heart—the moment she’s freed, all she wants is to tear down the façade Odin draped over Asgard and get back to subjugation, more than willing to start by subjugating her own people.

Honestly, Hela herself isn’t as interesting a character as either of her brothers, just because she’s pretty cut and dried. But I think her story, and its implications for Asgard’s history, are very interesting. (I love that Taika Waititi directed a colorful, kooky Thor movie that also has such a strong anti-colonial message.) Her look and overall vibe is really neat as well. I love her ostentatious, malevolent headdress. And the moment during her first confrontation with Thor and Loki, where she stops Mjölnir in midair and shatters it, is cool as hell.

Relationship Spotlight: Jane Foster & Thor (Thor)

*Spoilers for Love and Thunder.*

Back when I first got into the MCU and was writing Marvelous Wednesdays posts, I wrote about both Thor and Jane, but I never got around to their relationship. In the first two Thor movies, I mean, their relationship was nice, it was amusing. But there were so many other parts of the MCU to write about, and they didn’t grab me as a pair.

Cut to Love and Thunder. Not only are Jane and Thor great, separately and together, in the main plot of that movie, but there’s also a short flashback montage of their relationship that does more to inform their story as a couple than the entirety of the first two Thor movies. I love just seeing Thor and Jane going out on dates or staying in to watch a movie, and the film does a wonderful job of showing the soft, gradual way their relationship fell apart. As per Korg’s narration, both of them begin to dwell increasingly on the fact that Thor is nigh-immortal and Jane is not. Rather than watch that lead to a dramatic “I can’t do this anymore!” confrontation, we instead see how both throw themselves into their work—each trying to save the world in their own way—to avoid those painful thoughts, and as that work takes priority, the two of them drift until the day Thor comes home to find a note that Jane has left. It’s a comic-book story involving a millennia-old alien with superpowers, but it’s also such a quiet, human story where both make mistakes that hurt themselves as much as they hurt the other person. Masterfully done—fans can argue about the film all that they want, but honestly, Love and Thunder is worth it just for that montage.

Getting into Thor and Jane’s reunion after she’s granted powers through wielding Mjölnir, the pairing just fires on all cylinders. The way both try to play it cool despite how thunderstruck (Thor pun) they are to see each other is cute. I love their interactions over Jane working on her hero skills—mainly her shaky catchphrase game, hehe. It’s great to watch them fight together, how they back each other up and impress one another in the field. Thor’s clumsy admission that he wants to “feel shitty” about her, believing that the pain of heartbreak/loss is worth it to love her and have her love, is sweet.

Then Jane drops the bombshell on him: she has stage four breast cancer. She turned to Mjölnir in the hope that its power could heal her, but while the hammer grants her strength, vitality, and power while she’s using it, the effort is sapping her body and limiting her ability to fight the cancer. The first time they got together, they knew their relationship had an expiration date, but now, that date is coming up a lot faster than either of them expected.

This is a heavy trial for both of them. Moreso for Jane, obviously, since she’s the one who’s sick. And while Thor begs her to stop using Mjölnir and save what strength she has left, Jane makes the choice that she’d rather go out fighting, especially fighting alongside and protecting the man she loves. Meanwhile, Thor, who’s been dealt a lot of personal losses in recent years and has quailed at the idea of enduring any more, sadly accepts Jane’s choice and cherishes what brief time they have left together.

In the final fight, when Gorr is on the brink of achieving his goal of destroying the gods, it is Thor’s love for Jane that finally moves the bitter, vengeful man’s heart. Facing his end, Thor spends what might be his last moments holding a dying Jane in his arms, and Gorr finds the strength to choose love over revenge. It sounds corny when I write it out, and I suppose it is a little, but I don’t care. It’s gorgeous.

One more thing I want to mention. I saw a comment that Love and Thunder is Natalie Portman’s best Thor movie because it’s the first to treat her as more than Thor’s love interest. What’s really interesting is that, in large part by giving Jane her own story and agency, the movie also gives us the best Thor/Jane relationship we’ve ever had. Romances are better when both characters are explored in complex ways and given weight in the story—who knew?

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022, PG-13)

*Premise spoilers.*

I was able to get to the latest MCU release over the weekend and am now catching up on some of the chatter about it. Love and Thunder is proving very divisive, with lots of fans online either dragging it or caping for it. Personally, I haven’t quite made up my mind on everything yet and am still sorting through it.

Since Endgame, Thor has been traveling with the Guardians and helping them out, but he’s feeling a bit directionless, not sure what he wants anymore from his very long life. However, when he discovers a zealot known as Gorr the God Butcher has been murdering deities across the galaxy, he’s moved to action. With news that Gorr has set his sights on New Asgard next, Thor returns to Earth to back up his old friend Valkyrie. When he gets there, he sees that he’s no longer the only Thor around. Someone new is wielding Mjölnir: Jane Foster.

We’ll start with what’s probably the most divisive aspect of the film, the humor. I’ve seen plenty of complaints that the humor is too forced, too jarring, that there’s too many jokes and it undermines the more serious parts of the story. Now, one thing I love about Taika Waititi films is how deftly he can move between ridiculous comedy and heartbreaking drama—Jojo Rabbit has my heart for all time. As such, I don’t think Waititi’s brand of comedy in the film is an immediate knock against it. And there’s stuff in the movie that I found hilarious. Honestly, those damn goats just killed me, and I love the reaction to Zeus stripping Thor of his disguise (and the rest of his clothes) in the city of the gods. I do think some of the humor falls flat, but I also remember feeling jarred by some of the humor the first time I saw Ragnarok. By the time I saw it again, the tonal shifts of the film “settled” for me and I now consider it top-tier Marvel. I might have a similar reaction the next time I watch Love and Thunder.

The story is pretty stuffed, and while the various elements mostly all work well, it can make the movie feel at odds with itself sometimes. Just a little too hectic to capture everything it’s trying to do. But in the scenes where it’s firing on all cylinders, this movie has something special. I pretty much love Jane’s Mighty Thor storyline from start to finish—the film gives Natalie Portman excellent material to work with, and Jane gets to be every bit as complex as Thor. Similarly, the love story between her and Thor is so good it retroactively improves their relationship from the first two Thor movies. I also really like what’s done with the titular god of thunder himself. Waititi’s version of Thor is a loyal meathead with a huge heart, and I love the film’s exploration of all the losses Thor has suffered in recent years, asking whether he has it in him to keep caring about people who get ripped away from him. Chris Hemsworth does excellent work throughout, handling the comedy and emotion with equal aplomb.

Another strong element of the film is Christian Bale’s Gorr. I doubt anyone will ever unseat Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s phenomenal Wenwu in the Marvel Villain rankings of my heart, but Gorr is an excellent antagonist. His motives are tragic and understandable, even if his actions are not, and Bale plays him like this haunted wraith of a creature who’s only able to keep going by the fuel of rage and vengeance. Gorr is at times frightening, at times almost campy, and at times a picture of grief, and it’s all really effective. In truth, the film could’ve used even more of him.

As for the rest of the cast, the Guardians have little more than cameos, which I was pretty much expecting. Not nearly enough, though, of Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie—not that I think she’s badly used, but Thompson rocks it in this role and I’m greedy. On this first viewing, I wasn’t altogether vibing with Waititi’s Korg. To me, his humor doesn’t work as well here as it does in Ragnarok, but I do like the narration he provides throughout the film. Russell Crowe serves up a hammy Zeus, and there are some welcome appearances from a few other characters, including a surprise debut of a new bit of MCU casting that had me over the moon.

Warnings

Comic-book violence, thematic elements, mild sexual references, language, and drinking.