one of the things i liked best about thor: ragnarok is that it’s a story in which thor is not the hero — he’s the main character, but that’s a different thing.
heimdall is narratively treated as the hero
by the structure of the film — like mako mori in pacific rim, you see
his entrance before you actually see him. there’s a cut where you see a
glimpse of the walls in the bifrost hall, not so far into the movie,
and there’s no one there at all — but you think ‘heimdall’, or at least i did. all the cinematography and editing around heimdall shows him as the epic hero. he’s
the one who gets the centerpiece moments: stealing the sword, leading
people (including thor) to safety, the cool hero bits like the one where
he says “excuse me” and then turns away to kill zombies, opening the
doors in the woods, guiding the entire remaining population of asgard
onto a spaceship while the citadel burns. the film does, i think, a really good
job of balancing heimdall’s role as its hero with thor’s as its
protagonist — but the end scene where thor sits in the ‘throne’ still
rings a little hollow.
“The universe hasn’t seen this marvel since before my watch began. Few can sense, even fewer can see it. A world that’s infected can be dangerous. It is truly beautiful.”
Where’s the angst ridden fanfic about Heimdall growing up and stuggling with his abilities? When did he get them?
Can you imagine a kid of like 7 (or whatever the Asgardian equivalent is) realizing that he can see everything, like… e v e r y t h i n g??? Yeah it may be cool to look at his friends or that neat little bug with the 20 legs on a pebble under the ocean in Realm 6 or something. But what about the first time he saw a birth? What about the first time he saw a storm devastate an area? Or the first time he saw someone innocent get hurt or tortured all those galaxies away and he can’t help? What about the anxiety inducing, or bad, or painful, or traumatic things that he could see? Was there a time when he couldn’t control it? Was he always catching glimpses of things?
And then what happens when he’s a teen and is told he HAS this job to do that requires him to stand at a post ALWAYS watching?
Did he go through periods hating his abilities? What was he like getting through that? Did he ever rebel and take a day off?
What did it feel like for him the first few times he let someone else see (like that scene in Thor 3)?
Smile It Won't Suck Forever 