And as
usual, by “The Avengers,” I mean, “Avenger or character in an Avenger-adjacent film,” much like Peggy
or Hope. Anyway, going into Thor:
Ragnarok, I was so pumped for Valkyrie, and she did not
disappoint. Funny, complex, badass,
capable – the whole package. I’m not
sure what’s going to be happening with her going forward, if she’s going to be
involved in the Infinity War stuff or
other later films, but I sure hope we get to see more from her
(Valkyrie-related spoilers.)
Thor
encounters Valkyrie upon his arrival in Sekarr, where she saves him from
scavengers only to sell him to the Grandmaster as a gladiator. Right away, we (and Thor) are hit by the
force of her. She’s both an adept
warrior and a hard scrapper, rather blithely unscrupulous and more than a bit
of a mess. She has plenty of skill and
strength to back up her threats, but her hard drinking can thwart those
intentions, throwing her off her game and forcing her to just scrape by against
opponents she could waste with ease when she’s at her best.
As the
film goes on, we get a better sense of Valkyrie and why she’s the way she
is. An Asgardian and former elite
warrior of Odin’s, she left Asgard long ago after the first war against
Hela. The extent of the carnage and the loss
of her fellow warriors was hard on her, and what’s more, she became
disillusioned with the idea of fighting and dying for the sake of conflicts
arising within the royal family. As
such, when Thor tries to convince her to go back, she’s not having it at first –
in her mind, the royal family can clean up its own messes. She’s already given enough of her blood,
pain, and heartbreak on their behalf.
Really, Valkyrie is a well-done example of a familiar trope, the once-noble warrior
who’s become both damaged and jaded from the traumas of their past. As with many of those characters, her story
is about overcoming that trauma and learning to again be the hero she once
was. That said, I’m not sure if I’ve
ever really seen the archetype played in this way by a female character. I’d be curious to learn a little more about Valkyrie’s comic book history and how closely her canon character aligns
with how she’s portrayed in the movie, because after Ragnarok, it struck me that there’s really no self-conscious sense
of her being a “female version” of that archetype – she just is.
Either way, I like it.
Not that
it’s all trauma and damage from Valkyrie, not by a long shot. Despite the darker roots behind the issue,
her drunken fumbling in her fight scenes provides some good physical comedy,
and her world-weary deadpan goes nicely with Thor’s more overt humor. Not to mention, when she pulls it together,
she’s awesome. I absolutely love watching Valkyrie fight
in this movie – the sloppier stuff early on for its entertainment value, and
the cleaner, more focused stuff later for its sheer heroism and badassery.
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