Fundies Say the Darndest Things

Loki - They are changing him from an Alpha Male to a Beta. Stop it.

Loki seems to be slowly getting more and more depowered as time progresses through the Marvel timeline. But what is sadly the most devastating blow to the character seems to be that the writers who help to craft Loki’s personality seem to slowly be stripping away his alpha male characteristics and replacing them with beta male ones.

You have to admit that in the first Thor movie Loki put it all on the line when he tried to betray Thor and take his place as the leader of Asgard. He was a Man on a mission, and was willing to take huge risk’s and chances to get what he wanted. But now, it seems that Loki just wants to have power and status.

What changed? Well I believe that it is his knowledge that he wasn’t a blood heir to Odin, and that changed his frame and mindset of how he viewed himself. It changed who he believed he was. Instead of having a singular mission, a cause that he thought was worth fighting for. He felt that he was the only one who saw how reckless Thor was and how foolish it would be to make a Man like that king of the realms. So he did what he thought he had to to protect Asgard. But after learning he was the son of a frost giant king that changed everything for Loki.

Now because he feels what was once his rightful succession to leadership has now been replaced with just trying to be authentically an heir of power. Now Loki just wants power and is directionless.

This has changed Loki from an alpha male that was willing to sacrifice society for his own benefit to a beta that will bend to the winds of change as long as there is some scrap of leverage and power involved.

Hopefully there is some evil redemption for Loki.

See our discussion about Alpha vs Beta / Thor vs Loki at our following link to our YouTube video. https://youtu.be/dXyBZVXrvHA?list=PL_R0PYzy4FL3_QwQla1v4kmPKGXCgRR8t

Comments:

u/[deleted]

Loki was portrayed way less masculine than he originally was in older Marvel comics. Tom Hiddleston gave a somehow "classical" or "theatrical", glamourous interpretation of his moods. In the comics, he's a born destroyer, he's also ripped and his muscles fill each panel with envy and rage. In the movies he's certainly a lot less virile than he actually was meant to be, so I think he was "Beta" from the start

u/TalkTactic

You are right, Loki is a born destroyer in the comics.

You are right, Loki is ripped and his muscles fill each panel with envy and rage.

I never thought about Hiddleston's performance as glamorous, but after reading your comment I can see your point.I think the most important thing here is that in the comics Loki is a born destroyer whose ripped muscles filled every panel with envy and rage. There were no ripped muscles of envy and rage in the movies for Loki, and that is just a disservice to mankind - nuff said

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u/EvieWn

His primary motivation in the very first movie was an attempt to step out of Thor's shadow, implying that he's been following in Thor's footsteps his entire life. He's always been a beta, he tried being an alpha for a while and got himself thrown into the void, imprisoned, and his mother killed in the attempt, I think he's just trying to find a beta role that doesn't involve getting stepped on by Odin any longer.

u/TalkTactic

EvieWn you have some great insights about the movies. I think the implication that he has been following in Thor's footsteps his entire life is accurate.

"He's always been a beta, he tried being an alpha for a while and got himself thrown into the void," You might be right EvieWn, Loki may have always been a beta. So first I'd like to say that I don't think that men fit neatly into the dichotomy of Alpha and Beta. For the sake of discussion lets entertain that men do fall into one of those two camps, Loki very well may always have been a beta.

I think that many men in real life would identify themselves as beta and like Loki attempt to be "Alpha" and fail. But I believe that if men had to fit in the category of Alpha or beta then there would be some men that are naturally Alpha and some men that would be self-made Alphas. In one of our Talk Tactic videos we discuss three kinds of Alphas.

1. The Alpha who sacrifices society for himself.
2. The Alpha who sacrifices himself for society.
3. The Alpha who sacrifices himself for himself. you can watch that video at the following link if you like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdoUa7ZI2Hc&index=9&list=PL_R0PYzy4FL1GbXfj-UOqOFe9ze-qmjLz

Back to Loki, I want to say that Loki would very much fall into the category of 1 or 2 in the first Thor movie.Here are my reasons why I think Loki was Alpha in the first movie.

1. Loki sees that Odin is putting Thor; a reckless, arrogant person on the throne of Asgard. A person ready to war.
2. Loki sees that as a threat.
3. Loki chooses to foil Thor from getting on the throne.
4. Loki understands that he is risking it all but if he is successful he will benefit Asgard and himself.
5. Loki has a chance to align himself with his Odin and Thor after learning about their lies, but instead, Loki chooses to go his own way which means falling into the abyss into the void. If you read the James Campbell hero with a thousand faces, this sets up Loki as being ready to be reborn when he emerges from the void.

I think you may be right though, it is quite possible that Loki has always been beta.

We also did a video discussing how some authors define what an Alpha is. You can watch it at the following link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6p9H4NImU4&list=PL_R0PYzy4FL1GbXfj-UOqOFe9ze-qmjLz&index=2

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u/dangerphone

You know, they made Loki a woman in the comics for a few years. How does that fit into your alpha-beta dichotomy?

u/TalkTactic

Hello dangerphone thanks for that really great comment. Yes I realize that in the comics Loki did and would use and possess a female form. Also I believe that in some of the most recent comics there was a very ambiguous nature to how he identified his gender and sexuality. Just for clarification this is Michael Angelo responding to you because I don’t know how John feels about this. I see a contrast between the Alpha and Beta male in principle, but I think for the majority of men characteristics of Alpha and Beta attributes are embedded on a sort of spectrum. Each individual is different and what characteristics exist and the extent to which they are used in every individual’s personality is different. But typically if you are going to use the dichotomy of Alpha and Beta to divide men into two camps, the majority would fall into the Beta category. But back to your question, I think it is interesting that Loki who we identified as being the beta would also have been a woman for a time in the comics. Even now in his most recent adaptions his gender identity continues to be ambiguous and questionable. In a way Beta males take on feminine traits and characteristics and may also believe that feminine nature and qualities are superior to masculine ones. This would be in my view unhealthy because people should realize that masculine and feminine are both necessary and important and have been one of the key reasons for the success of humans on earth. But if Loki is a beta male than it would seem that his willingness to adapt his gender to acquire something he desires to compensate for something in his personality that he requires validation for, seems to be exactly the kind of difference we were describing between Thor and Loki in the video. How do you see things? I’d really be interested to hear your take.

u/dangerphone

Oh I was joking because alpha-beta theories are the domain of women-hating neck beards and alt-right children. I dislike everything about your theory and find it as deplorable and misguided as creationism. Sorry to get your hopes up for any sort of discussion.

u/TalkTactic

At Talk Tactic our mission is to encourage men who identify themselves as nice guys and to help them on their journey of reaching their vision of the good Man they want to become. Hopefully in that process of improving their lives they also improve the lives of those people closest to them which includes the most important women in their lives. Every person should seek to pursue liberty and happiness. It's unfortunate you chose to be vulgar and hurl insults.

u/dangerphone

I don’t believe I used a vulgar word but I understand if you read between the lines and got your feelings hurt. Loki becoming a woman, the power of Thor falling to Jane Foster, and many more characters exhibiting a greater diversity in gender, sexual orientation, and racial and ethnic identity shows that the comics industry is moving in the same way of the mainstream culture, towards a discarding of conservative and heteronormative values for values that foster the liberty and happiness for all. You seem to think liberty and happiness is earned by placing oneself at the top of a hierarchy, and so you will always be either be self-satisfied or insecure.

I do feel sorry for you, and do hope that one day you will look back on young self and shake your head ruefully. Because if you think if yourself liberated, you really have not found the edge of the cage.

[The argument continues in this fashion but the rest is too lengthy to post here.]

What Chinese College Students Think About Race

As an English teacher at a Chinese university, I spend a lot of time with young people. As a result of friendships I’ve developed, I have learned a lot about what they think about race and ethnicity.I’m particularly well positioned because my university has an especially large number of students from Pakistan and sub-Saharan Africa. Most identitarians believe the Chinese are traditional and realistic in their attitudes towards race. For now, this is true, but the Western mentality is rapidly infiltrating Chinese society and corrupting the minds of young people. The old ethnonationalism that protected Chinese identity is evaporating under the pervasive forces of globalization and liberalism.

The girls’ disgust is often combined with fear, and they associate blacks with crime. This gut attitude from Chinese girls can be perplexing because it arises from those who have often never met a black person, or have seen them only in passing. It seems to me this association of black people with danger and violence is almost innate for Chinese people, especially women. I’ve also noticed that black African young men have absolutely no luck trying to date Chinese girls, who see them as weird, ugly, and aggressive.

This contrasts sharply with Chinese girls’ typical reaction to whites. From my own observation, and from what I hear from others, they practically throw themselves at white guys. In our class introductions at the beginning of the semester, I usually have at least four or five ask if I will date them—they flirt with me right in front of the class. Many more make advances privately. The Pakistani boys have mixed results. Some of them are successful, but if they are too traditional in their Islamic behavior, the Chinese girls reject them.

My male students mainly see blacks as basketball players and hip-hop rap artists, and they often describe them as “cool,” “fashionable,” and “strong.” Many of them idolize black people. However, Chinese boys are not attracted to black women and would never think of marrying one. I was once in a group discussion in which it was jokingly suggested China should invade Africa to acquire women to fill the sex gap plaguing China (thirty million Chinese boys have no girl to marry). One of the Chinese men in the group looked perplexed, and said: “But there are no women in Africa for us to marry; there are only dark-skinned people there.”

Although there is basic agreement that blacks are not attractive, I am still amazed by how differently Chinese boys and girls think of blacks, especially of black men. In part, this may be because Chinese young people are more segregated by sex than American young people, so they may have different ideas about other things as well. Many boys are afraid to talk to the girls, which keeps them even further apart.

What I’ve described is the Chinese “gut reaction” to black people, but the issue is becoming more complex as the Chinese government “opens up,” as my students call it. As a foreigner, I don’t see everything that goes on within the Chinese education system, but I gather from my students that the government’s approach is a contradictory combination of an enthusiastic embrace of globalism with a form of nationalism that protects the government. The results can be surprising.

Despite their obviously low opinion of blacks, when I ask my students whether blacks are as intelligent as whites and Asians, they almost universally reply, “Yes.” This is because of their schooling. Almost all of them cite the phrase “all men are created equal,” even though many of them don’t know where it comes from. They tell me their teachers taught them racial equality when they were in school. When I ask them why they believe this, they cite the line from the Declaration of Independence as if were scientific proof of equality.

I often get interesting reactions when I explain the actual IQ scores for each race. My students’ first reaction is laughingly to celebrate the Asian results: “Ha! We’re smarter than white people!” After we joke about this, I ask them what they think about blacks being so far below whites and Asians. Almost without exception, they cite the arguments made by the American Left: “It’s because of white racism,” “It’s because of European colonialism,” “It’s because they have bad nutrition,” or “It’s because they don’t have proper education.”

I was initially shocked by this. I couldn’t imagine how they’d been trained to say these things when they spent their whole lives in Chinese schools. Many of them say their teachers taught them Africa was poor because white people stole all the natural resources. It seems that racial egalitarianism has spread farther and deeper than most of us would have imagined.

Part of this can be blamed on Chinese government media (which is almost all media). In an effort to delegitimize American society and inspire nationalism, the authorities portray the United States in a bad light. This includes reporting on gun violence, and constant coverage of “police shootings of young black men,” which they portray as evidence of American “racism.” At the same time, Chinese seem to equate globalism with Western culture and, especially, Americanism. All things American are fashionable and cool.

Increasing Chinese globalization will probably accentuate these contradictory trends, and the Chinese government is not consistent on race. It teaches that America is evil because of “racism,” while simultaneously making it impossible for non-Chinese foreigners to get permanent residency. Allegedly, there is a way to get it, but no one, to my knowledge, has ever successfully done so. The government condemns Europe for not taking in more refugees while enforcing some of the strictest border controls and visa restrictions in the world. To us foreign residents, this is highly hypocritical.

My students sometimes claim America and Europe are “racist” for not allowing mass immigration, or they suggest I must be “prejudiced” against Mr. Obama because he’s black. When I ask them if they want the Chinese president to be black, or China to invite millions of Japanese immigrants, they react with horror and bewilderment. Their common response is something timid and confused, such as, “That’s just not the Chinese way.”

This deligitimizing of America is coupled with officially encouraged hatred of the Japanese. The Japanese are denigrated every year on the annual Anti-Japanese Day—yes, it’s really called that—which was created to memorialize the Nanking Massacre. My students often say shocking things, such as, “Why didn’t America kill all the Japanese people in WWII?” or “Please nuke the Japanese again,” within the same conversation in which they criticize American “racism.” I’ve heard this same, inconsistent attitude echoed by senior university officials.

My race-realist perspective is almost always vindicated when my students travel to America with foreign work programs. One of my students worked in Ohio over the summer. When he returned, I met him in a tea shop and asked him what he thought of America. The first thing out of his mouth was: “The black people . . . they’re so . . . dangerous.” I got a similar unprovoked reaction while I was sitting at a gate in the Shanghai airport. A complete stranger was returning from Massachusetts and suddenly delivered a rant about how blacks were brutish and weird.

When African students began arriving at my university in higher numbers last year, the Pakistani and Chinese students were initially excited about getting to know them. I watched the excitement turn to confusion and disgust.

A Pakistani friend decided to have an African as his roommate. I warned him against it, but he went ahead with his plan. For the next six months, he enlivened our conversation with horror stories about the absurd and outrageous incompetence of his apartment mate.

Unfortunately, academics will probably grow to adopt the liberal American perspective on racial equality and compatibility, but actual exposure to diversity is usually a cure. There are ways to speed up the process. One of my Chinese friends couldn’t believe there was evidence for blacks having lower IQs and higher crime rates than whites and Asians. I pulled up Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance video “Race Differences in Intelligence” on YouTube and let her watch. I then showed her videos of the Ferguson riots, flash mobs carried out by “youths,” and videos of the knockout game. Her perspective changed in a single evening. She was shocked, and told me her whole perception of America and race relations had changed. She’s been “red-pilled” ever since.

Egalitarian illusions are taking root in China, but they are not as firmly implanted as in the United States. Direct experience or a dose of countervailing evidence is often an effective cure. But the cultural influence goes only one way: Illusions flow from the West to China. It is impossible to know how badly they may eventually poison the minds of young Chinese.

As in the West, older Chinese seem to have a stronger instinctive dislike for blacks than young people. I’ve been told by friends that African students have trouble renting apartments from older and middle-aged Chinese landlords. Personally, I have very limited interaction with older people, so my impressions are mainly second hand.

Young Chinese who do not attend college have more traditional racial views than the more educated, but they are still influenced to a great degree by American pop culture, and are instructed in primary school by teachers who have been influenced to some extent by American thinking. Their beliefs are still moving towards egalitarianism, though more slowly.

The long-term solution, of course, is to eradicate the illusions at their source, which is the United States. I have come to realize the importance of this effort, not just for whites but for the entire world.

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