Loki and Evil

If you've read Othello, I think you might appreciate how interesting of a villain Loki is, especially comparing him to Iago, whom some Shakespeare scholars call the perfect villain.

As I was watching Avengers, I thought of various ways the character of Loki could be improved—his scheme seems too calculated and diabolical. He relies too heavily on human factors out of his control to carry out his Machiavellian schemes, which is why he fails.

To me, one of the more interesting scenes in Avengers was when Loki is talking to the crowd and telling them to kneel. They do, of course. Realistically, if some deadly-wand-wielding alien-man starting killing people en masse, don't you think you'd kneel even out of imagined hopelessness?

Of course we would. Power is humbling. Power bends people to the wielder's ends.

But there are all kinds of power, and the kind that might just be the most important you might not hear about even in Foucaultian discussions of power. It's the power you can exercise in your every day life. It's the power one harnesses when one performs rhetoric to speak the truth.

And I guess I should qualify here to say truth with a lower-case t, but no. I mean truth with a capital T. Truth that is spoken to authority and to structures of power—when the subaltern destroys and does violence to Repressive State Apparatuses. When one, fully aware of one's ideological position, uses ideology to destroy another ideology. This is violence.

But when is intellectual violence justified? When it is clear structures of power are actually bigoted. Here we can dispute the term "bigoted," but let's not. Homophobia. Racism. Sexism. Ableism. Other -isms I haven't named.

How hard is it to be a good person in this world? My hypothesis: people who think they're good usually think others are not, generally. The most evil people in this world don't believe they're evil, but rather every one else around them are evil. Must cite DFW here for the previous sentence.

It's the hardest thing in the world to be a good person. In Avengers, Loki asks the crowd who would stand against him. After a few moments, no one stands up.

However, slowly, and hesitant in a dignified manner, an old man stands up.

Loki: "Who are you to stand against me? Kneel!" (paraphasing)
Old man (possible Holocaust survivor): "Not to men like you."

In five syllables, the old man destroys Loki's credibility. Spoiler alert: the Avengers save the old man, but the damage is done.

Do the ruled have "sufficient ground to stand"? (Paradise Lost). Can democracy survive without devolving into mob rule? If you read my Heroes post (below), you might accept my proposition that heroes are important. Here I'm going to qualify it: heroes are important to a democratic society. Firefighters. Cops. Doctors. Lawyers. You can add or subtract to this list.

Loki says no. He argues against democracy and his reasons are as old as the Norse fables his story originates from. Yet I think of Gandhi:

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it—always."

Hitler and Stalin were always doomed from the outset. Murderers and tyrants may seem invincible but they will always fall when we do something about them. When we stay complacent, of course they seem invincible. They have power. Structures of power are scary. When we stand up for truth in the most honorable way—risking our selves—evil shrinks in perceived influence. 

When is risking your life practical in the most practical sense? Wouldn't the character of Iron Man act always in a way to minimize risk to himself and others? As I said about Coulson below and the old man above, true power comes from defending others whether or not we agree with them. It comes from sincerity in the most cliche sense and empathy in the most spiritual sense possible. It comes from courage.