towards a queer, weird, trickster ethic

dispatch 46

Hiya friends. I’ll keep it short (for me) and sweet today and hop to it! Today’s essay on Loki was inspired and influenced by a book I read (linked in the reccs section at the end!) and this essay (in audio form) by Báyò Akómoláfé on embracing monstrosity. I am very grateful for both pieces of work.

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Viking burial place. Vöra, Finland. October 2022.

towards a queer, weird, trickster ethic

The Loki of popular culture is having a moment. In Marvel movies, which I have not watched, he is flashy and elegant, an antihero. In the Norwegian show Ragnarok, he takes the form of a sarcastic and lonely high school student. While I’ll use he/him pronouns for Loki in this piece, the idea of a containable Loki is laughable. He defies definition, and that is his power. And in the current landscape of escalated political warfare on queer people, I think of Loki often.

Most traditional ways of knowing about the world involve a trickster character. These beings are clever, emotional, and conflict-driven. They embody the element of chaos that makes the larger story possible. In Norse myth, Loki is a shapeshifter, half-god, half-giant. He is both a mother and a father; he is a fish, a horse, a fly.

Loki is an embodiment of the weird, the queer, the misfit vagabonds who question ideas of order and authority, either explicitly or simply by existing. Loki exudes a fluid sexuality, gender, allegiance, and form that troubles arbitrary roles and boundaries. In comparison to Thor’s dumb strength or Odin’s quiet knowing, he positions himself as a foil. He is, without fail, the being that the gods turn to to resolve their problems when a blunt instrument simply will not do. They are aware of his changeable, clever nature, and they try to harness that cleverness for their own ends. But Loki will not let them. And so, he becomes a complicated danger. 

The same characteristics that Loki is lauded for when he is weaponizing them for the gods are the very reasons they do not trust or include him. He is a wildcard. He saves these thankless gods over and over again, mostly from themselves, only to show up (quite literally) to their party and insult everyone there. They keep him because his gifts make them stronger. His trickery results in the weaponization of the gods, with the creation of Thor’s legendary hammer, Odin’s spear, and a magic boat for Frey. Loki procures these weapons for his sometime-enemies under duress. They have threatened his life and he has no choice. Sometimes there are no good choices and you do what you have to do to survive the moment. We know that well in 2023.

For his proximity to the gods, Loki and his children are punished mercilessly. Loki’s queerness and fluidity are relentlessly mocked by these powerful beings that will never accept or love him. No matter how he tries to conform, he is left on the margins, indispensable and yet not cherished, shunned over and over again for his nonconformity. His story holds a lot of pain, but in my reading, it is ultimately a story of queer triumph.

Released from a confinement enacted by the gods, Loki, alongside his strange children (a wolf, a serpent, the Queen of the Underworld), rallies an army of the dead. On a ship of ghosts, Loki challenges the gods to battle and brings about Ragnarok, the end of the world. The myth of Ragnarok is often written in modern tellings to valorize the gods and make a villain of Loki. We are supposed to agree that he is funny, yes, and clever but that he is ultimately evil. But the story of the end of the world is also the story of its beginning, a new start born of the ashes, another chance for every living thing. His actions turn the world over and the result is something beautiful. Is not Loki as responsible for the beginning as the end? Who among us has not wanted to tear down an unsavable world, in the hope of something better?

I love Loki because I recognize what it is to be surrounded by ghosts and the ones I love most, facing the impossible battle of what comes next. I love his blatant disrespect for unearned authority and I love his resourceful cleverness, which I can see reflected in every mutual aid drive or free queer recovery call where queers make something out of nothing for and with the people that they love. He is a reminder that establishment systems will take any chance they can to leach creativity from queers when it suits their purposes, only to punish that same creativity when it threatens their stronghold of power. He is a symbol of where our energy must lie and of just how powerful we can be when we remember exactly who we are.

May we have strange children and raise them to be strong. May we carry our dead with us so that we might feel their strength and their power. May we shift our form as many times as we damn well please, become mother and father and something within and beyond both. May we break the world open so that it may begin again.

Assorted, rad thing(s): 

A section of this newsletter where I share what I have been reading, watching, or otherwise consuming lately.

• Call for Submissions: Lesbian and Queer Recovery at Sinister Wisdom: I am beyond proud of my partner who just released their call for submissions for an upcoming thematic issue with storied lesbian press, Sinister Wisdom. The issue will honor their love of and research on Jean Swallow, who edited the only book on lesbian recovery that exists to this day…back in 1983! If you’re queer and in recovery (in whatever way you define recovery), I hope you’ll consider submitting a piece. The world needs to hear from you.

• The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec: A fiction book I bought at the train station, this was such a quick read. It gives a backstory to Angrboda, Loki’s first wife in Norse myth, re-telling the story of her family and her loved ones. I have been really fascinated by Loki as a character lately (see above!) and while he is not the central character here, it caused me to look at him in new ways.

• Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby: Absolutely no one can make me shamelessly chortle in a public place like Samantha Irby. I would and will read anything she writes.

If you’re reading, I would love to hear from you. Just hit reply to this email or drop a comment below.

with love,

lisa

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