Not only does she not get a romance, she gets fully sidelined.
During one of the first vainglorious battle inThor : Love and Thunder , there ’s a big costume reveal . Naturally , you may think I ’m talking about when Chris Hemsworth ’s reverent superhero sees his ex - girlfriend Jane assume the mantle of the Mighty Thor for the first clip wearing a silver helmet and a breastplate . And , yeah , certain that hap . But instead I ’m talk about Tessa Thompson ’s Valkyrie wearing an oversizedPhantom of the Operat - shirt as she strikes down shadow monster . Aesthetically , Valkyrie is the most interesting reference on screen in the twoThormovies in which she has star . And , yet , somehow it always feels like she ’s failed by the narrative .
In Taika Waititi ’s first Marvel picnic , she ’s premise as a Asgardian expatriate with a tragic past times who guzzles beer and doms Hemsworth when she feels like it before finally team up with him . One war withThanos by and by , she ’s been crowned King of New Asgard , a community of sack Asgardians - slice - tourist attraction where she peddle Old Spice in a tuxedo . ( As I said : Shelooksextremely nerveless . ) When Christian Bale ’s Gorr the God Butcher imperil the galax and kidnaps a cluster of tyke , she joins the crew , which includes Thor , Jane , and Waiti ’s rock monster Korg . But this sentence around she feels even more like a pal , and is finally completely sideline for the finale so that Thor and Jane can have their bountiful consequence without her interference . It ’s almost as if two female heroine were just too much for anyone to figure out how to do by — especially when one is epicene .
In part , this disappointment is all a matter of arithmetic mean . Shortly after the firing ofRagnarok , Thompson corroborate that , even though any expressed reference to the reference ’s sexuality was cut , she played Valkyrie as fag , likeshe is in the comic . Thompson promise that there would be follow through when teasingLove and Thunderat Comic - Con in 2019 , declaring : " As new king , she call for to find her queer . That will be her first fiat of business enterprise . She has some ideas . Keep you posted . " And , despite Marvel ’s parent ship’s company Disney ’s crappy track disk of LGBTQ+ inclusion body , there was reason to be a teensy flake hopeful that peradventure enjoy for Thompson ’s character would merit more than a wink .
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Disney has n’t come a long way since the pitiful " exclusively gay moment " in the 2017Beauty and the Beastwherein Josh Gad ’s LeFou danced with another valet , but it has edge nigher toward inclusivity . In the animatedLightyear , the nominal hero ’s Space Ranger partner sound by Uzo Aduba finally shine in love with a adult female in a floor recount largely through montage . A kiss between the eventually marital couple set about the filmbanned in countries with regressive laws including Saudi Arabia . So where ’s Valkyrie ’s female monarch ? Basically nonexistent . She get none of the " love " in theLove and Thunder , even though Waititi and Portmanhave call the movie " so gay . "
Yes , Valkyrie ’s queerness is referenced , but only in a half - hearted agency . She seductively kisses the hand of one of Zeus ’s handmaidens after steal the lightning bolt of the Greek graven image work bombastically by Russell Crowe . Shortly thereafter , she pledge with Korg on their magic ship , and when the topic turn to romance , he mention her drained ex - girl , one of the other Valkyrie slain in battle twelvemonth prior . So , yes , our Val has a beau , but she ’s a dead one , which is just a hop skip and a jump away from the " bury your homophile " trope that has molest TV and picture for generations . Instead of getting to just be , braw characters are quite literally shafted . The prime example of this is Tara onBuffy the Vampire Slayer , whose execution leads her girlfriend Willow to turn to benighted legerdemain , butthere have been so many more .
For her part , Thompson has already begun to defend the treatment of Valkyrie inLove and Thunder , reason that she did n’t want the quality toonlybe dilute to her gender and bemoaning the constraints of the running time . " Whether or not she finds love in this movie does n’t mean she ’s not still a fabulous fagot fiber that is open to finding love when it make sense,“she said . That ’s all well and good except for the fact that romance is sort of the name of the game here , and even Korg is coupled up by the remnant . In fact , Korg links up with another Kronan name Dwayne , so there is an LGBTQ+ couple in the movie — they just happen to be made of rock , which feels a bit insulting when you really guess about it .
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But even ignoring her love life , Valkyrie baffle the shortsighted shrift here . With attention twist back to Jane , we ’re left with just snippets of Val ’s inner life . There ’s a hint that the two women in Thor ’s life develop a kinship off covert , but it ’s just a jot , the same way of life we get just a sense of taste of Valkyrie ’s existence as King of the seaboard vista .
Her vibes , however , are peerless . Thompson ’s very mien is electric on screen . She radiate prize whether she ’s bumping Mary J. Blige from a flyspeck verbalizer or maintain multiple weapons at once . It ’s just a ignominy she does n’t get more to do .
