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Please excuse spoilers. This is my first time here and this is playing on my mind.

OK so I just watched Thor 2, which was pretty damn awesome, but then at the end Thor and Odin have a nice little father-son chat where Odin recounts to Thor saying "You once said to me you would never know a wiser king than me."

All sounds well and good yeah, but then

Odin actually turns out to be Loki who has duped everyone into thinking he is, in fact, Odin and is now the king of Asgard.

"So what's the problem?" I hear you ask. Well, That point where Thor said "I will never know a wiser king than you" to daddy was at the end of the first Thor movie, after Loki had fallen from the bifrost over the magical waterfall into space/the universe/a magical little vortex thing and disappeared forever... until he came back in The Avengers.

My point is, how could Loki have known what Thor had said to Odin? He was in some strange temporal plane thing neither here nor there and definitely not in Asgard eavesdropping in on his adoptive family...

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  • 13
    If my son said something like that to me, I'd tell anyone who came within earshot about it. ..
    – Valorum
    Feb 14, 2014 at 7:10
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    Maybe Loki bought a copy of the Thor DVD?
    – tobyink
    Feb 14, 2014 at 13:20
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    @tobyink Looks plausible, but Loki's character says that he would torrent the movie to save money.
    – user931
    May 26, 2014 at 15:05
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    Pure speculation, but that might not have been the only time Thor said that. Given his humility after the first film, he might have praised Odin's wisdom many times, to Odin alone and in front of others. It's not a terribly uncommon thing to say to a great king, really. We'll never know, but Loki may well have heard about (or even witnessed) that sentiment being expressed at another time.
    – Nerrolken
    Oct 6, 2014 at 21:59

3 Answers 3

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Although it clearly seems like a goof, one could actually proffer a plethora of ways Loki could have found out that tidbit. For instance, could he have studied royal archives? Since we have no idea what's up with the real Odin, could Loki perhaps have probed his mind while he was recovering in the Odin Sleep? Also, do we know that Loki could not have used his magic to spy on Asgard from wherever he fell in the first movie?

It's probably a goof that can be chalked up to a new creative team (esp. director) taking over the second movie, but if one wants to try and stay within the movie canon, answers are as limitless as one's imagination.

EDIT: Good catch, though, I certainly hadn't noticed that yet!!!

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    It saddens me that this most-upvoted answer is really a non-answer at best.
    – TylerH
    May 15, 2014 at 6:19
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    if the original question is "How could . . . ?", and it is, then this is hardly a non-answer. It provides multiple "it could have happened like this" possibilities.
    – FoxMan2099
    May 26, 2014 at 22:15
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after Loki had fallen from the bifrost over the magical waterfall into space/the universe/a magical little vortex thing and disappeared forever... until he came back in The Avengers.

Did he? Are you sure?

Remember that Loki is the Trickster god, and his specialty is illusions.

It is entirely possible that his fall into oblivion was another illusion, and he simply used his apparent utter defeat as a chance to escape quietly.

Another possibility concerns the fact that we don't know exactly how long transpires between Loki's defeat and the epilogue scene. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Loki is recovered and either returns to Asgard or uses his mind-control powers to eavesdrop on Asgard, possibly on the very conversation in question.

Both theories, but especially the second one is backed up by the stinger at the end of the first Thor movie where we see Erik Selvig being mind-controlled by Loki.

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  • I remember reading somewhere that yes, he did - it's how he met Thanos and forged that partnership for Avengers
    – Izkata
    Feb 14, 2014 at 12:39
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    @Izkata yes, he did what? fall to oblivion? use an illusion?
    – phantom42
    Feb 14, 2014 at 13:34
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    Direct response to your "Did he?" - yes, I remember reading somewhere that he fell between the worlds, and that's how/where he met Thanos
    – Izkata
    Feb 14, 2014 at 13:44
  • @Izkata I vaguely sort of remember reading that, but I can't remember a source. I'll do some digging if I have a chance later. The other possibility (and I'll edit to reflect) is that since we never learn exactly how long takes place between Loki's fall and the epilogue scene, Loki could have returned.
    – phantom42
    Feb 14, 2014 at 13:45
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Victory against Loki on first movie is a great deed. Asgard gods are from a viking/celtic tradition where history is recorded mainly on an oral tradition, thus is, through songs, poems and narrations from bards.

It's quite probably that an epic poem/song was made from the facts of Thor I, including that phrase as a golden finish. Once Loki came back he could easily had heard the song on Asgard.

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  • Do you think there's a lot of singing of songs about Thor's victory over Loki in the dungeons?
    – phantom42
    Feb 14, 2014 at 15:52
  • @phantom42 Probably not in the dungeons themselves, but I imagine if you have a few hundred drunk Asgardians celebrating in reasonably close proximity to the dungeons they'd probably be able to hear it down there. Still, that strikes me as a very, very odd thing to include in a song about Thor's defeat of Loki.
    – Anthony Grist
    Feb 14, 2014 at 15:57
  • But if it's made it into lore, Loki would have been hearing it in the throneroom and stuff. Presumably, that is. We're still at the theoretical level here ;)
    – FoxMan2099
    Feb 14, 2014 at 17:01

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