Where Loki Will Be In Avengers: Endgame
Loki has now died three times now in the MCU. Well--"died," might be a relatively strong word. “Played dead,” is probably the more appropriate description. In the first Thor, he allowed himself to drop from Asgard into a wormhole; in Thor: The Dark World he faked a fatal stab wound, and now recently in Infinity War, he’s had his windpipe crushed by Thanos. But even this death might be staged since Loki’s apparently getting his own tv series on the upcoming Disney+ streaming service. To the show’s credit, it has been said that it will take place before the events of Infinity War and follow Loki as he manipulates or plays a hand in certain major events of human history.
But his actor, Tom Hiddleston, is still slated to make an appearance in Avengers: Endgame. Considering his death was in the minority of those who weren’t done in by the snap, and that he has a checkered past with actually staying dead, and that Endgame may feature time travel, we’re going to look at all the possible ways he can appear in Avengers Endgame.
Hiding In Plain Sight
Like we’ve mentioned, Loki has never been one to die properly. He just can’t seem to get the act down quite right, so he probably didn’t pull it off correctly in Infinity War either. Thanos may not have actually gotten the chance to crush Loki’s throat after all. Loki has an incredible talent utilizing illusions and has a history of casting said illusions in order to mask his escape or feign his demise. Most of the time, touching these illusion cause them to dissipate, but Loki has shown the ability to keep them solid if he wants, such as when he caused his skin to look like it was decaying when Thor was holding him in Thor: The Dark World. He also didn’t seem at all hurt when he revealed himself at the end of the same movie, so the stab wound we all saw him suffer probably didn’t actually happen either. Essentially, it’s not a stretch to think that he didn’t fake what happened to him in Infinity War.
In the original Thor, Loki’s intentions for letting go of the staff and falling off of Asgard into a wormhole can be broken down into one of two reasons. He either a: actually wanted to die and just failed to do so, or b: just wanted to get as far away from Thor and Odin (his “lie” of a family) as he possibly could. In Thor: The Dark World, faked dying for Thor so that he could further his schemes of taking the throne of Asgard, but this time without all of the fuss and hassle. But why go through the trouble fake dying in Infinity War? What purpose could it possibly serve? The obvious answer would be to get away from Thanos. Can’t kill what’s already dead, right? If that’s the case then we have to answer the question of why he didn’t reveal himself to Thor after the fact. Why continue to play dead?
Typically, after Loki fakes his death, he then hides himself in plain sight, casting illusions to either make himself appear as a different person--such as in Thor: The Dark World when he posed as a guard--or to make himself completely invisible to the naked eye--such as in the the end credits scene of the original Thor. From what we’ve seen, Loki typically does this to either gather information on a topic--such as the defenses guarding the tesseract, or to accomplish some other nefarious scheme--such as overthrowing his senior citizen of a father. In this instance, when we next see Loki in his new skin (should he actually be alive), it’ll probably be to achieve the former goal. Loki has spent some time with Thanos, but it’s obvious he has no idea how to actually beat the Mad Titan. Knowing that he’s going to be gathering the rest of the Infinity Stones and seeing that not even Thor or the Hulk was capable of stopping him when he only had one (that he barely used). It’s likely that Loki will have set out to figure out a way to stop him, to try and find some sort of weakness to either the stones or to Thanos himself, and he probably didn’t tell or reveal himself to Thor after the fact because he had no way to reach him, what with Thor being on a space odyssey for most of the film.
Loki is more than capable of getting around to different places and realms on his own, so maybe he has some leads he can chase to figure out what exactly he can do to help put a stop to Thanos and all of his plan (or at this point, reverse Thanos’ plan). Maybe he’s on his own space odyssey to gather a few allies that he thinks can be of some use. He is considered a god, and again, he has shown the ability to get around to different areas and realms both unseen and with his own shortcuts. Sure, Asgard is gone, but it’s not like Loki can’t survive a shipless journey through space. He did in fact survive a trip through a wormhole with what looked to be little to no issues at all. Of course, Loki doing any of this is assuming that Loki is in fact on Thor’ side to begin withl.
Along with a failure to die, Loki’s past is also spotted with treachery. It’s only on very rare occasions does he ever do anything selfless. Even in Thor: Ragnarok, the last adventure he and Thor had before Infinity War, he was doing everything in his power to undermine Thor instead of working with him, doing so in spite of their dad having just died, in spite of discovering they had a long-lost sister, and in spite of said sister’s attempt to kill the both of them and seize their home. It wouldn’t be too hard to believe that Loki was putting on an act with Thanos, giving him the space stone in exchange for being spared from the snap, and then “dying” in order to set up his escape from the ship. Thanos says the snap would randomize it’s victims, but considering he actually shed tears upon learning he had to sacrifice Gamura for the Soul Stone, maybe he was planning to cheat a little with the randomization aspect of the wipe. It’s not like he wouldn’t make a deal with an enemy to spare their life for a stone considering he did it with Doctor Strange for Tony Stark. Once Loki was in the clear, he could get back to work scheming to take over the world again, or some other area. Still, it does seem like Thor’s response of indifference to Loki’s actions of betrayal have washed away that side of the God of Mischief, but as his namesake suggests, you can never be too sure.
In Flashbacks and In The Past
On the other side of the spectrum, Loki may in fact actually be dead this time around. Infinity War wasn’t really playing any games when it came to killing characters off. We saw Heimdal get run through the chest, Gamura get thrown off a cliff--heck, Vision was murdered twice, by two different people, back to back. Then more than half of the major heroes were wiped out with half the universe’s population. Loki’s windpipe getting crushed may have just been another link in the chain of deaths that make up Infinity War. He may have been just another longtime character chucked to the side like they were nothing in the grand scheme of things. Loki didn’t even get to depart any final words to Thor with this outing.
If Loki really is dead in Endgame, then Tom Hiddleston’s appearance in the film definitely means were getting time travel or seeing the character in flashbacks. Time travel sounds like the more likely option considering all the speculation of it surrounding Endgame. Thor may end up having Loki’s past mistakes thrown right back into his face after only having had a short amount of time to see what good his brother was capable of. He’ll probably have to see and deal with the Loki we got in Thor, the Loki from Avengers, the Loki from Thor: Dark World, and even the Loki from the beginning of Ragnarok. Hopefully, though, he’ll be granted the chance to see the changed brother he got at the end of Ragnarok and the beginning of the Infinity War.
In this way, Loki’s presence in Endgame would serve as a way to further torture Thor. It would be a way to plague his character with the events that happened in Infinity War. We’re sure the other heroes will have their own demons to face, but since Loki’s more connected with Thor than anyone else, he makes the most sense for him in this case. Loki would serve as a way for us to see how Thor choses to live and deal with the idea of having lost the only flesh and blood he had left in the physical world, especially since he was just starting to get along with Loki after years of having feuded with them.
It would be devastating to once again have to deal with the Loki who was so enraged with being in his brother’s shadow that he tried to have him killed and committed high-treason to seize the throne for himself. The same Loki that grappled with the idea that he didn’t belong in Asgard at all and was just the charity case of his people’s conqueror. The one who didn’t believe he had a real family to betray in the first place. A Loki from the past wouldn’t recognize any relationship he may have had with Thor, and would thus reinforce the fact that Thor’s brother is just gone for good this time--no tricks or lies to be found to save him.
Loki can also appear in flashbacks and serve the same purpose, a constant reminder of what Thanos took from Thor, and an active reminder of what Thor wants in the Endgame movie because of it: revenge. We saw Thor promise Thanos in Infinity War that he was going to kill him for murdering Loki. He came pretty close too, just neglected to aim for the head when he had the opportunity. Add this onto the fact that Thanos wiped out half of the universe because of Thor’s misfire or need to see Thanos suffer first before killing him, and what you have is the perfect recipe to kick the hero while he’s down. Considering the promotional footage of Endgame that we’ve gotten so far, this seems like it would be a theme that fits the movie (everyone suffering the aftermath of their failure to stop Thanos from doing whatever the heck he wanted).
At the same time, Loki could also serve as a device to pick Thor up. With the two of them having reconciled their differences at the end of Thor: Ragnarok, they had the opportunity to maybe say some things to one another that they weren’t able to before due to being on opposing sides. Maybe Loki said something revealing to Thor while they were on the ship they used to escape Asgard’s destruction, something that Thor can keep in mind when he’s contemplating the idea of having utterly failed. Maybe he made a gesture of some sort or just did something to prove that he believed he and Thor were truly brothers, showed him a little bit of brotherly love if you will, because most of the time we see Loki attempt that it’s just a reus to get Thor to lower his guard. Besides, the two of them never did have any parting words. Death can be like that sometimes, though, so maybe he didn’t say anything to him at all.
