Loki debuted on Disney+ on June 9. But before the show even came out, the Marvel series delivered a fun reveal: Loki is gender-fluid. A June 6 trailer for the series confirmed as such. This is the first time the Marvel Cinematic Universe has addressed the character’s fluidity, but Loki being gender-fluid is kind of canon in the Marvel comics. In fact, a Marvel comic writer wrote Loki as fluid and bisexual in a 2013 comic.
Marvel comic writer Al Ewing wrote Loki as bisexual in 2013
The God of Mischief can transform himself into anything he wants. In the Marvel comics, he’s appeared as Lady Loki, who is gender fluid and pansexual. He’s also manifested as animals, and Odin even once referred to Loki as both his son and daughter. It makes sense that a character with an unlimited power to shape shift wouldn’t blink an eye at gender roles.
The MCU’s Loki has always been presented as a man. But Loki on Disney+ has clear plans to reframe Loki as one of its LGBTQ+ characters. It’s not a big leap, considering all of the evidence of Loki’s gender identity in the comics. And according to Marvel comics writer Al Ewing, the character’s gender identity isn’t where the character’s queer representation stops.
Ewing wrote Loki: Agent of Asgard. In a 2013 Tumblr post before the comic’s release, Ewing revealed he wrote Loki as an LGBTQ+ character.
“Yes, Loki is bi and I’ll be touching on that,” he said. “He’ll shift between genders occasionally as well.”
Tom Hiddleston knew Loki’s gender identity 10 years ago
The Tom Hiddleston-led series revealed in a June 6 trailer that Loki was gender-fluid. The reveal came briefly in a video posted to Twitter. In it, viewers see Loki’s Time Variance Authority file. His sex is listed as fluid, eyes blue, hair black, height 6 feet 4 inches, and his weight 525 pounds (he is a frost giant, after all). Loki’s last name is also listed in the file: Laufeyson.
Laufey, King of the Frost Giants, was Loki’s biological father. So Laufeyson means “son of Laufey” in the same way Odinson means “son of Odin.” Learning he was adopted by Odin and Frigga was a life-altering moment for the character. One he hadn’t fully come to terms with when he attacked New York City in The Avengers. That version of Loki is the one fans see in the Marvel TV show, given that the character escaped with the Tesseract in 2012 in Avengers: Endgame.
The information about Loki’s gender identity may be new to some Marvel fans, but Hiddleston has known Loki was gender-fluid since he was cast in the role 10 years ago. He told Out Magazine:
“I’ve known about the breadth of Loki’s identity since I was first cast as the character 10 years ago. Back then, I did a really deep dive into my own research and could see that not just in the comics, that’s always been there, but also in the history of the character across hundreds of thousands of years, there’s been a fluidity about Loki that I found really interesting and compelling and very much a part of the fabric of the character. It was really thrilling to get to touch on that this time around.”
Loki will struggle with his identity in ‘Loki’
Leading up to the show’s release, Hiddleston said Loki’s ongoing identity crisis would continue. This isn’t just about gender identity, however. Loki has struggled with knowing his place in the world since learning his true biological parentage in Thor. Hiddleston told Entertainment Weekly Loki shape shifts so often as a means of avoiding himself. But he’ll be forced to confront himself in the Disney+ series. Hiddleston said:
“I love this idea [of] Loki’s chaotic energy somehow being something we need. Even though, for all sorts of reasons, you don’t know whether you can trust him. You don’t know whether he’s going to betray you. You don’t why he’s doing what he’s doing. If he’s shapeshifting so often, does he even know who he is? And is he even interested in understanding who he is? Underneath all those masks, underneath the charm and the wit, which is kind of a defense anyway, does Loki have an authentic self? Is he introspective enough or brave enough to find out? I think all of those ideas are all in the series — ideas about identity, ideas about self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and the difficulty of it.”
Time will tell if Marvel has decided to incorporate Loki’s sexuality into the series as well. Loki debuts new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.
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