Loki and Sigyn

Beware-thar be a loooong description below. I have a lot to say about this piece!

I've been super interested in Norse mythology ever since I watched the first Thor film two...three? years back? I knew the very, very basics but was curious as to how the comics and films differed from the source material. Turns out, Stan Lee and co. took oodles of liberties with their Norse gods. Fun liberties, don't get me wrong. I love their comic liberties. But the original material is amazing, too. Especially Loki. No wonder he's such a source of intrigue for scholars. 

I'm very curious about Sigyn, his wife in the myths. She's not mentioned in detail, other than the famous passages that describe her holding the bowl of snake venom over Loki when he's bound to the rock as punishment for being a gigantic troublemaker. But it made me wonder about their story. How they met, what made Asgard's resident trickster actually get married, what her personality was like--because again, she certainly isn't fleshed out to the extent that her husband is. 

Her name translates to something like "victorious girl-friend," and she's often referred to as the goddess of fidelity--ironic, considering Loki was anything but. I just kept wondering what kind of woman it would take to put up with Loki's crap. And I came to the conclusion that she had to have been a firecracker. The myths don't say anything of the sort, so I filled in the holes. In my book, she has to have wit and cunning that matches her husband's, as well as a mischievous side. I like to think that she stops short of um, you know...murder and sparking the apocalypse, but for the most part, she's just as much of an adventurer as Loki (though perhaps not when it comes to sexual escapades. Loki needed to settle the crap down, I swear).

She's not afraid to get her hands dirty, thinks it's impractical to go riding wearing a gown and so she wears men's clothing when she's out and about. Can hold her own physically in a fight but, like her husband, prefers to maneuver her way out of sticky situations using her intellect. I do think she's softer than Loki when it comes to loving other people, and is the goddess of fidelity in the sense that when she does love someone, she loves them fiercely, hence her devotion to Loki when he's in the really, really unpleasant Old Norse version of the time-out corner. 

So they both bicker and squabble and constantly threaten to leave each other permanently, but at the end of the day, they always come back to each other and are always ready to take on a new adventure together. She has to be called "victorious" for a reason, right? It's because she kicks butt. Including her husband's. 

I can't shake the image of Tom Hiddleston as Loki, but I wanted to lend him a myth-ier appearance for this, something mischievous and reminiscent of Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (yes, I know we're talking Old Norse, not Shakespeare, but Puck and Loki probably would get along swimmingly, so bear with me here). And I know he's traditionally thought of as having red hair due to his association with fire, but he's never actually described as having red hair. And the whole fire thing is due to an issue with a false cognate that confuses "Loki" with "Loge," which actually does mean fire. All we know from the Poetic Eddas is that he's very handsome, but that's it. I toyed with the idea of giving him red hair here, but settled on movie Loki's black hair with some random red streaks in it--which I like to think popped up when he married Sigyn as a tribute to HER red hair because, aw, he loves her. 

For whatever reason, I've also always pictured myth Loki with black talon nails. And tattoos.  I have no idea why. I like the idea of his tattoos actually moving--sliding around under the skin like snakes. 

Rose Leslie was the inspiration for Sigyn. Confession: I've never seen "Game of Thrones" but it looks fantastic and the first time I saw Ygritte, I thought, "That's it. That's Sigyn, dirt, grime and all." So there you go.

Also, if Loki and Sigyn tickle your fancy, you have to check out this fic www.fanfiction.net/s/8864747/1… it is, hands down, the best integration of the movie-verse with the myths. And so like how I imagine the dynamics between the two. It heavily inspired this piece.