My favorite Ragnarok headcanon is that the entire movie is a story Thor is telling the audience. That’s why it opens with a monologue, that’s also the reason of the sudden tone shift into comedy and that’s why despite all the horrible things that happen, it’s so endlessly optimistic. The real events that transpired were probably very similar, just much, much darker.
This really explains so much, like how characters like Loki and Hulk, and Thor himself, are so different from the other films- because we’re seeing them through Thor’s eyes. The dialogue is different as well, much more casual and shorthand with use of slang in place of the typical Shakespearean lines, because Thor is paraphrasing in his retelling of the events. I like to imagine that Thor’s audience is actually the asgardians on the ark at the end of the film, mostly families and children, so he’s ramping up the goofiness and drama (you are now meeting the grandmaster, please dont cut my hair, get help), using childish humor (the naked hulk), and poking fun at everything (surtur’s big eyebrow). They were all just extremely traumatized, so Thor is taking care of his people in the only way he currently can- taking comedy theatre tips from loki.
I kinda like to imagine what it would be like if it just… did not occur to Loki that Hela was gonna be genuinely evil about taking over Asgard. Anywhere else, sure, fine, he doesn’t care, but that’s not what you do with Asgard.
(Of course, on one hand, it absolutely did occur to him, he’s cowardly in many ways but not ignorant. On the other hand, following this thought thread for the pure amusement of it, Hela basically seemed to be the sincerely evil conqueror this chaotic neutral dandy been trying to be for the past few years but better, he would absolutely throw a fit and not think about it.)
Like, Loki landed on trash planet and was like, “Welp, I have been sorely, embarrassingly outmatched by a sibling I never knew I had, who is me but better at it. I live here in this trash heap now. I’m going to become the kept floozy of a madman until I murder him and also get smashed at 8 am for the rest of my millennia-long life while wallowing in my misery.”
Then Thor shows up and is like, “Loki, get your ass out of someone else’s bed, we need to go back and save Asgard from our villainous sister.”
Loki’s desperately like, “Uh no, you embarrassed me in front of everyone? I would kill everyone in this room and then myself before I ever went back to Asgard now. Go away. I’m plotting to rule this trash heap, where I now live.”
And Thor replies, “It suits you perfectly. One problem. Our ‘villainous’ sister’s usurpation of the throne involves actually killing our people. She didn’t take over Asgard just to build great golden statues of herself, flirt with the entire court, eat grapes languidly, drink of all Dad’s good booze, and watch glorifying plays about herself while wearing Dad’s fanciest bathrobes. She’s not like you. She’s actually killing our people.”
And Loki’s just… completely flabbergasted, despite the fact that Hela’s first action was to make a very good go at trying to kill them both (completely normal thing to do in the Asgardian royal family, really).
the fact that Loki’s death scene in Thor 2 was originally intended to be real & retconned later and the end where he’s alive was filmed during pickups has me SO fucked up because now I can’t choose between which headcanon I prefer re: his behavior in Ragnarok. like listen, okay, either:
1. loki was planning on playing dead the whole time and so his very sad death scene & everything he said therein was a calculated move and he was practically writing the theatrical version of it (starring matt damon as himself) as he went along
OR
2. loki really thought he was dying and every melodramatic word of his death scene was 100% heartfelt and then after he realized he wasn’t dead he fucking… woke up peaced out to go take over asgard (lol?) and several months later he was sitting on the throne and could remember every word of what he said to thor on that day and was like “wow im so fucking poetic. that should be a play. starring matt damon as Me perhaps”
Thor, post-Ragnarok, doesnt really know what to do with himself. he’s lost. so he pushes some buttons and manages to space-skype-call steve rogers. thor relates to steve what went down, and basically goes. im king even though i didnt really wanna be, not really sure what to do please help.
and steve goes hey have you ever heard of democracy
so thor, having found a way to maybe not have to be king of asgard or at least be king with a lot more explicit support, delightedly calls a shipwide meeting. he explains the concept of voting (maybe not like. super clearly) and issues ballots. the vote goes like this:
Everybody who’s not really sure what’s going on with this voting thing just votes for thor. that seems like a safe call. some of the really confused ones just write in their own names. a fair number of other asgardians, who actually understand what’s happening, vote thor on purpose, but a lot of it is confusion.
Loki votes for himself. he doesn’t really want to be in charge of this mess but honestly he can’t help himself. Several of the escaped gladiators also vote loki, mostly because they didn’t really follow the whole loki-thor dynamic and loki summoned a giant flaming magma man to kill a planet, which was pretty cool. that guy seems to have a handle on stuff.
the Valkyrie votes “Thor, lord of sparkles.”
Every child votes hulk. they were all issued ballots because nobody realized they maybe shouldn’t be. dr banner votes Hiemdall.
literally every person who has a good grasp on the situation votes heimdall. thor votes hiemdall.
hiemdall loses to thor by one vote. it was heimdall’s. he voted for thor.
yeah heimdall ABSOLUTELY knows exactly what he’s doing when he votes for thor. he sees everything, he knows how the vote will go. he has watched literally every single member of the line of odin go off the rails while trying to run asgard, and he wants no part of that mess.
he’s heimdall. he doesn’t have to be in charge to do whatever the fuck he wants.
After everything that happened in Ragnarok, imagine Thor hearing about Steve and Tony’s fight and being like “Really?! Thats why you all stopped working together?! Just get over it! I did! I’m still friends with Loki and he’s betrayed me three times since breakfast! This petty mortal shit is nothing!”
Loki: “Can confirm, poisoning his mead right now.”
Thor: “Ha! I’ve built up an immunity.”
Now I feel I was cheated on Civil War
Steve: “Well, we disagreed about this big political thing, and I mean big – almost every country in the world was involved.”
Thor: *nodding* “Right.”
Steve: “So we started to fight, I mean really fight. We each had about half a dozen friends backing us up.”
Thor: *nodding* “Always best to bring your friends along”
Steve: “And by the end, it was just me and Tony, and we… we really pounded each other…. no holding back.”
what i do is not up to you 