7

in The Avengers the iridium was stored in a vault which has an iris scanner. Loki seemed to have gouged out the eyeball of Henrich Shafer to access this. However, I'm wondering why Loki didn't just use his scepter? I see two ways he could've done it using the scepter:

  • Use the scepter to blast the door open since it seems powerful enough to take down a S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft during the New York battle
  • Use the scepter to control Henrich so that he can open the vault himself

Isn't this sort of easier?

Even if he didn't cause a scene, he was already detected by S.H.I.E.L.D. so the Avengers would've come to him, regardless, so his plan of being captured would still be successful.

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
3

Blasting the door open

Agreed, he could have just blasted the door open with the scepter, but as User5603 pointed out he wanted to give his "team" time to finished the device, and to get "captured". and they seemed to want to steal it under the radar so to speak, so blasting wouldn't work all that well for that purpose:

Mind Control

We know several characters are mind controlled during the film, Clint, and Selvig are the two main ones, and when a person is under the control of the scepter this iris colour changes, here is Selvig both without mind control and while under:

enter image description here

His normal brown eyes have become an almost unnatural blue, the same thing happens to Clint, so a change as severe as that would probably make them not register as the correct eye on the scanners.

So probably removing the eye was actually the best way in universe to achieve his goals, presuming that normal everyday threatening Henrich Shafer to open the door at gunpoint wouldn't have been enough

And lets just ignore the changes made to a human eye that the removal process would have caused

Improve this answer
2
  • 2
    +1 on the eye part. That's interesting. Although I think the device was probably meant to gouge out eyeballs without damaging it that much...
    – I. Am
    May 20, 2019 at 14:58
  • 3
    removing the eye was actually the best way in universe to achieve his goals, presuming that normal everyday threatening Henrich Shafer to open the door at gunpoint wouldn't have been enough, Let's not forget Loki can change his appearance at will. He could have literally just transformed into anyone at all to open the retina-detecting door.
    – user1717828
    May 20, 2019 at 16:26
7

You're not wrong that Loki could have just used the scepter... but....

Loki doesn't care about not causing an incident. He's entirely up for causing a huge scene - he is on Earth to rule, why would he walk around the pitiful civilians without demanding they kneel? They're far more likely to kneel for somebody who just gouged out the eye of your host.

His entire mission at this exact moment is to cause a distraction for Hawkeye in the lead up for getting "captured" by the Avengers so he can unleash the Hulk on the team and tear them apart from the inside while simultaneously buying Erik Selvig enough time to build the portal device.

So yes, it would have been entirely possible for Loki to just use the mind stone. It would have caused less of a scene but ultimately, that isn't how Loki chose to do things. He is the God of mischief afterall...

Improve this answer
5
  • While I agree with the first paragraph, if his mission was to cause a distraction, he can still cause a really huge scene afterwards, right? He can still make those people kneel and intimidate them in some other way (kill one of them, etc) afterwards and at the same time, ensure that he keeps them away from Hawkeye.
    – I. Am
    May 18, 2019 at 9:40
  • @I.Am you're missing the point that Loki is the God of mischief and this is how the screenplay was written to begin assembling the Avengers early in the movie. I don't disagree with any individual point you make however its not what the screenwriters wrote. Please read the rules for this site - asking an open-ended, hypothetical question "what if X happened?" is considered off topic
    – user5603
    May 18, 2019 at 9:42
  • Okay. The reason I'm asking is this is that it is much faster to steal the iridium this way. The delay it took, there's a chance the Avengers could have responded immediately while they were still stealing the iridium...They were able to identify Loki so chances are they're also aware of everything that was happening. The show that Loki put to gouge out the eyeball was indeed intimidating but it was time consuming.
    – I. Am
    May 18, 2019 at 9:43
  • While they did identify Loki, they didn't identify why he was there and didn't stop the theft of the iridium - they detected Loki, went to Germany, captured Loki, and let the remainder of Loki's team leave Germany because the Avengers were seemingly unaware of their presence. Obviously the problem which introducing a macguffin as flexible as the mind stone is literally every single scene in the movie could have been Loki using it to get what it wants. Nothing stopping him from going to the president and taking control. The screenwriters chose not to do this.
    – user5603
    May 18, 2019 at 9:50
  • I see. So it all comes down to screenwriters? Guess nothing can be done. BTW, I'm not asking a what-if question, I'm asking why Loki did not consider doing those things I mentioned, and how he made such a decision, given he has the scepter at hand.
    – I. Am
    May 18, 2019 at 9:56

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .