The
purpose of mythology is to help us navigate our own time. Key to Thor: Love
and Thunder is an exploration of rebuilding life after your world comes to
an end. The ways you can do so unhealthily, or healthily.
Following
the destruction of Asgard, the surviving Asgardians founded New Asgard on earth.
But it has become almost a parody of itself, its story told as a theme park for
tourists rather than to provide their children with roots that go deep. Asgard
no longer exists, at least in a physical sense; yet New Asgard, which does, is
not as real. It lacks any thickness, lacks substance. What will it take to
transform this, to reawaken a community?
Thor
is lost to himself; his former girlfriend Dr Jane Forster is lost to herself;
each is lost to the other. What must they let go off, in order to remain true?
What fears must they overcome? What fears must they surrender to?
Thor’s
magical hammer, Mjolnir, has also been destroyed, and lies dormant, a
curiosity, a tourist attraction; but Mjolnir reassembles itself—its broken
parts held together, visibly scarred—by the power of love. Not even love can
heal a history that remains subject to denial; and the future we are yet to
discover bears the marks of the past we did not entirely choose, though had
some degree of agency within.
Heimdall’s
daughter wishes to be known as Heimdall’s son. Thor is deeply uncomfortable
with this. Does that make him transphobic? Or does he understand that there is
a deep vocation to being the daughter of Heimdall, that should not be lightly
laid aside, even for an alternative expression? Or is it enough to be able to
say, I am uncomfortable with this; I have questions, and concerns, about where
the limits of individualism lie; but, nonetheless, I will treat you with
dignity, I will support you with love? In the complexities of life, we do well
to extend honour, and not judgement, towards one another.
The
purpose of a movie is to entertain. But, under the cover of escapism, sitting
in the dark, questions are posed, explored, left unresolved, taken away with
us. How has my world gone through these things? Or what might happen next?
Questions always tied to our own personal histories, the ways in which our
lives have been destroyed and reconstructed, securely, or insecurely. And to
all our possible futures.
The
New Testament reading this Sunday, from the Letter to the Hebrews, speaks of
everything that can be shaken, being shaken, so that, in the end, only what
cannot be shaken remains. Of inheriting a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and
therefore of the possibility—truth even—of experiencing joy, in the midst of
our world being shaken violently, to the core. Not entertainment, but
sustainment. Not a settling for a shadow of the past, but the awakened hope of
a more substantial future, calling us.
Our
world is being shaken. How will we respond?
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