I don’t
really want to use this post to be hard on Jane, but the pairing between her
and Thor always fell just short of
working for me. While I do think she was
dropped rather unceremoniously in Ragnarok,
I can’t deny feeling the instant spark – not overtly romantic at this point,
but still electric – between Thor and Valkyrie (Thor-Valykrie-related
spoilers.)
After
spending two movies on the things that come with a human-Asgardian romance –
the fascination/misunderstandings involved in being from different worlds, the
awe of a human meeting a “god,” the mortal/immortal issue – it’s nice to see
Valkyrie and Thor on more equal footing from the get-go (and I swear that’s the
last time I’ll reference Jane.) As a
fellow Asgardian, albeit one who’s been away from Asgard for a long time,
Valkyrie’s strength and battle skills are comparable to Thor’s, and they were
both raised in the same culture. They
also both have experience traveling to other planets (although not necessarily
the same planets – by the time Thor arrives on Sekarr, Valkyrie already knows
the lay of the land quite well.) This
allows them to skip a lot of the steps that go on between Thor and humans with
no knowledge of Asgard.
And so,
they can get right on with it. We learn
that Valkyrie’s past service as one of Odin’s warriors, and her rough
experiences therein, have made her wary of the royal famil. When Thor tries to enlist her help in fighting
for Asgard, she balks at the idea of giving any more of herself for the sake of
the monarchs’ conflicts. This means Thor
needs to find a different way to reach her, appealing to the part of her that
wants vengeance for her sisters slain in battle so many years ago, to again
confront Hela (the reason she left Asgard in the first place.) It provides a good means of getting to know
Valkyrie a little better, and it also forces Thor to think beyond “I’m the son
of Odin” being a good enough reason to get someone to do what he says.
Because
this is Ragnarok, these two also
bring the comedy together (given what Ragnarok actually is in Norse mythology,
that makes this a really weird statement to make, but it’s true all the
same.) Thor’s often-misplaced cockiness
goes well with Valkyrie’s dry self-assurance, and they spar verbally with one
another almost as well as they trade physical blows. Because Valkyrie captures Thor on Sekarr and
gives him to the Grandmaster, she has the upper hand in a lot of their early
interactions, a position that Thor doesn’t often find himself in. So, it’s fun to watch him brashly try to
assert control and her blithely shut him down.
At the same time, though, the power differential isn’t completely
one-sided. Valkyrie may be a badass warrior
who gets the jump on Thor early on, but she has her own issues, too, and while
they’re rooted in the trauma of war, stuff like her tendency to drown her
memories in booze lead to some amusing moments where she gets a swing and a miss
on the “badass warrior” front.
While I
imagine the plan is to go for some sort of Thor-Valkyrie romance down the line
(during the Infinity War(!!!) stuff?
Will there even be time? Beats
me,) and you can see tiny hints of it in their interactions, I really like the
comrades-in-arms way they ultimately fight together. Both are strong and skilled in combat, and in
the major fight scenes, they’re equally able to go off and do their own thing,
addressing separate parts of the issue, and come together to face a foe in
tandem. It’s just a really refreshing, kind
of egalitarian dynamic. I like that
Valkyrie doesn’t need Thor coming to her “rescue,” and by the same turn, he
doesn’t need to be emasculated for her to be strong. I think I’d really enjoy a romance between
them that maintains that dynamic of them having each other’s backs as equals.
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