Laurits in Ragnarok comes across as a casually cruel person, but the moment he stands out to us is when, in season 2, he sees himself as a demon for the first time and casually acknowledges and accepts it. Laurits peaked there. He was never more interesting before or after that one scene. We believe that the writers were very scared of making him unlikeable, despite the fact that he is supposed to be a trickster to begin with. He was never loyal to one group but went where his interests took him. The point is that Loki always stays in a position of advantage, with all of the sass and pizazz that non-commitment to one side brings with it. But there was no trace of it in the three seasons of Ragnarok. There was also a cunning intelligence to Loki, which we feel the writers of Ragnarok missed in their brief. Even Laurits’ sense of otherness, which they initially tried to explore, went off the rails when they attributed it to his transness.
Before we go further, we would like to clarify that we are using Laurits’ pronouns as he or him, because nothing was particularly specified in Ragnarok. He identified as the serpent’s mother, had an eclectic sense of fashion, and liked Jens as a man, if they were any markers to go by, which makes us think that he might be gender fluid. Yet, he did not say it specifically, so we are going with him for the time being, while acknowledging that these may not fit with his identity.
The character of Loki is not easy to like, but he is harder to hate. All his actions come from a place of wanting to belong, not just through oaths and acceptance but through a deeper connection with the soul. Maybe that is why he was so hell-bent on spending time with Vidar, so that he could see if he belonged with him. It is also why he was always in conflict with his brother, because the fact that they did not share blood made him distrust the bond they had. Laurits valued blood above all else, which is the primary reason he was so attached to the Midgard serpent. By all means and reasons, the serpent would never fit into Loki’s life and was a danger to his brother. We don’t believe that Laurits would have ever put Magne in danger, but he had a way of trying to protect everyone, which is what ended up putting them in harm’s way. Laurits’ cunning was his armor that protected a very sensitive and emotional individual, one who never knew how to analyze his emotions to act rationally but was prone to dangerous impulsiveness. We haven’t seen all of the Marvel movies and series, but we hope they send this God to therapy in one of them. Let him be a well-rounded individual in at least one universe.
We are not debating whether Laurits felt different from the others. He had to, and even though everyone was supportive, we doubt anyone understood his exact emotions at any point in time. Maybe he would have felt less isolated if he had been in a better town or city where there was a support group for people going through the same thing as him who would have helped him process and compartmentalize his feelings. Sadly, that wasn’t the case, and we suppose that Turid, despite her good intentions, failed to see the exact kind of help her son needed, which is why she ended up revealing the truth about his parentage. We absolutely wish this part had been explored more.
We were told that demons and humans cannot conceive offsprings, but then comes Laurits, and it is all just accepted. We don’t think Laurits was so attached to Vidar because of parental love. Instead, it was because he was the potential link in Laurits feeling like he finally belonged somewhere. And Laurits got that when Vidar woke up the supernatural side of him. Laurits’ sense of morality was really about what worked out for him. He hated choosing sides, and that is why, when he came to know that he was a potential demon, he was happy because he found that sense of belonging without thinking about the repercussions of it all.
Yet, let us not forget that Laurits told Magne that day that Ran was out to kill the old lady. He established that while he may not actively take part in Magne’s battles, he wouldn’t stand in the way of it all. Laurits was not really someone who would think through his actions. He said that he was playing the game, but he never asked to what end? He gave Magne entry into the Jutul house to forge his hammer, but did he really not know what that hammer would be used against? In Season 3, Magne could not use the hammer because the Jutuls had threatened to kill Laurits if he did. While Laurits took that favor from his brother, he also had Midgard as insurance, ready to kill Magne when the time came. Once again, we understand that it may all be a carefully orchestrated game, but it irritates us that Laurits did not tell Magne about the serpent. It shows that he may care about his family, but it is not enough.
Laurits was only connected to the Jutuls because of Vidar. None of the giants were family by blood, but they had just been living together with an established system of hierarchy. Once Vidar passed away, Laurits had nothing to do with the family. In fact, depending on the perspective, Laurits shared blood with Odin since he had stolen it in Season 2, so he should have tried to belong with the gods. We believe his choice and favoritism towards the Jutuls came from the point of forced scripting since, in the original Ragnarok, it was Loki who led the giants to war with the gods. Maybe if the Jutuls had not been so stubborn about keeping him away from them, things would have turned out a lot differently, and Ragnarok would not just have been Magne’s imagination. In fact, we would say that it was this critical difference that prevented the war and destruction of the world. Laurits’ character did not get the arc it deserved in Ragnarok seasons 1, 2, or 3, and now the only explanation we get for his changed loyalties in the modern day is that the Jutuls were foolish.
