3.1. The Dark World
In the aftermath of Loki’s attempted invasion of Earth, Thor arrives back on Asgard with the Tesseract, leading his sibling in chains. Both are presented to Odin All-Father, who commands the Tesseract to be given into Heimdall's keeping, and Loki to be imprisoned in the dungeons of Valaskjalf.
Several months later, in the present, Thor leads the armies of the Asgardian Empire against marauding raiders to defend the people of Vanaheim. He defeats a huge Rock Troll, winning the battle, and the Aesir prepare to return to Asgard to celebrate the victory.
Odin throws a feast to celebrate the rout of the Marauders, and Thor, Siff, and the Warriors Three are celebrated as great commanders. Thor’s heart clearly isn’t in it though, and during the celebrations he slips away to visit Heimdall. Heimdall is unsurprised to see him, and knows before Thor asks what he wants, telling him that Jane Foster is well, and is visiting Erik Selvig.
As Thor returns to the palace, he meets Odin, who warns him he should give up on Jane, as their very different lifespans mean the relationship can end in nothing but heartbreak.
Back on Midgard, Jane is in London. Selvig has moved to the UK after being freed from Loki’s control, and claims he has made a great discovery, but when she got there, she found he wasn’t at his flat or answering calls.
When we first see her, she’s on a date. Not having heard from Thor since the Battle of Puente Antiguo, she’s given up on him and is trying to move on, but the date is going badly. To give her date his credit, this has much less to do with him than it does the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D (acting on advice from Tony Stark that Jane would shortly be in danger) have assigned her a bodyguard, Agent Roz Solomon, who is watching their date with interest from the next table over. When Darcy Lewis bursts in to say Jane’s Einstein-Rosen Bridge detector is going crazy, even Jane’s date seems relieved that the ordeal is over.
Jane, Darcy, Darcy’s intern Ian, and Agent Solomon all pile into Jane’s van and follow the signal to an abandoned factory, where they find a group of teenagers who show them a series of strange gravitational anomalies - a room where gravity is so low the kids can lift a lorry, and a stairwell where anything dropped reappears at the top, infinitely looping.
When Jane tries to track the source of the anomalies by following the strongest energy signals, she unwittingly steps through a portal, finding herself in a strange stone value. Before her are two huge blocks of cut stone. From between them issues a red glow, flighting and moving like flame.
When she gets close, trying to see what’s generating the light, the Aether grabs hold of her, flowing through her skin and into her body. As she passes out, she falls back through the portal.
In deep space, the last of the Dark Elf Arks, huge sword-like warships, comes online, waking its captain from his stasis.
Jane wakes up back in the abandoned factory, on the other side of the building from where she’d stepped through the portal. When she stumbles outside, she finds Darcy had called the police, and Agent Solomon is on the phone, arguing with someone who sounds suspiciously like Nick Fury. Baffled, she asks Darcy what the hell is going on, and Darcy tells her she’s been missing for hours, not the minutes it had felt like for Jane.
As they talk, it begins to rain. Jane realises that she’s not getting wet, as though some invisible force is controlling the weather around her, and when she turns, she sees Thor. He explains that when she stepped into the portal she had passed out of Heimdall’s sight, and Thor, terrified of what might have happened to her, had come straight to earth to search for her.
Their reunion is interrupted by the police, who try to arrest her for wasting police time and trespassing on private property, but when they touch her, a burst of scarlet light erupts out of her, knocking them to the ground.
Thor, recognising something is very wrong, begins to summon the Bifrost, but Agent Solomon insists that if he is taking Jane anywhere, she’s coming too. “I let her out of my sight for five minutes, and she disappeared for hours and now she explodes when people touch her! I don’t care how important you are on your planet, I answer to Nick Fury, and he’d have my head if anything happened to her, so if you’re taking her away, you’re taking me too!”
Either charmed by her protectiveness, or cowed by the mention of Fury, Thor agrees, and summons the Bifrost to transfer the three of them back to Asgard.
Thor takes Jane to Breidablik, the house of healing, where the healers examine her condition using a soul forge, which Jane recognises as a quantum field generator. As they are studying her condition, Odin arrives and orders Thor to send Jane back to Midgard. When Thor refuses, Odin orders the Einherjar to take her there, but as soon as they touch her, the burst of energy explodes out of her, the same way it had on earth.
Odin recognises the energy and orders them to follow him. He takes them to Valaskjalf, to his library. When Agent Solomon tries to follow them in, the Einherjar guarding the door bar the way.
Annoyed, she prepares to wait, but notices Fandral leaning against the wall, watching the proceedings with interest. He gives her his most courtly bow, and offers to show her around, reassuring her that nothing will happen to Jane while she’s with the All-Father.
In the library, Odin tells Thor and Jane the history of the Aether, and the First Dark Elf War.
5,000 years ago, the Nine Realms aligned in a rare cosmic event known as the Convergence. Malekith, King of Svartalfheim sought to use the portals opened by the Convergence and the power of the Aether to return the universe to Ginnungagap, the primordial darkness from which the Dark Elves were born. He was opposed by Bor and the Armies of Asgard, who used the Bifrost to rip the Aether from Malekith’s grip and cast it into the deepest pits of Niffleheim. Without the Aether, the Dark Elves were defeated and their species wiped from the face of the Nine Realms.
Thor questions whether they might not have survived, since legend said the Aether was destroyed with them and yet it survived, but Odin is adamant. The race of Dark Elves was wiped out, and pose no threat.
On the last Ark, Malekith is very much still alive, as are 500 of his warriors. As they prepare for the upcoming convergence, Malekith gives Algrim, his second in command, the last of the Kurse Stones, which grant their wielders immense strength at the cost of their lives. Before his watching soldiers, he stabs Algrim, placing the Kurse stone inside the wound.
Volstagg and Siff arrive in the Himinbjörg with a ground of prisoners of war bound for the Valaskjalf dungeons. Among them is Algrim, in disguise.
They are led to the dungeons, where Loki watches them arrive before returning to arguing with his mother about the correctness of his punishment.
When Loki banishes the shade she had been using to speak to him, Frigga seeks out her other child, and Thor introduces Jane to his mother.
In his cell, Algrim activates the Kurse stone, killing his cellmates and giving him the power to break through the barrier, holding them in the cell. He easily kills the Einherjar on guard, and begins breaking out the other prisoners, though he leaves Loki his cell.
Hearing the alarm, Thor leaves Jane with Frigga and her handmaidens and rushes to assist the Einherjar, meeting Sif, Agent Solomon, and the Warriors Three on the way. Odin, suspecting a more serious threat than a prison riot, distributes the Einherjar around the palace in preparation for an attack, sending them to guard the Vault, and a detachment down into Asgardia to protect the civilians.
Seeing Agent Solomon and his friends have the prison under control, Thor goes in search of his father, to update him on the situation, just as a dozen Harrows appear in the sky above the palace.
Remembering Tony’s warning, Thor abandons all thought of his father and runs for his mother’s chambers.
Heimdall activates the energy shields around the palace, but Algrim fights his way to the power source and destroys it, taking out the shields and allowing his comrades to reach the palace.
Hearing the commotion above, Roz Solomon and the others race up in time to join the Einherjar in fighting the first wave of Dark Elf soldiers. Roz’s gun proves useless against them, doing nothing but knocking the soldiers back a little, but Sif takes a weapon from the first Dark Elf she kills, giving it to Roz to use instead.
In the throne room, Odin, armed with his spear Gungnir, battles the Dark Elves with his Einherjar guards.
Having accomplished his mission with the energy shield, Algrim the Kursed makes for the Aether. When Kurse breaks down the door of her chambers, Frigga draws her sword and fights him, but her attention is focussed on maintaining the illusion which hides Jane, and Kurse is able to overpower her. Just as he prepared to strike the killing blow. Thor arrives, throwing him off her and smashing in his skull with Mjøllnir.
In the throne room, Odin’s guards fall, one by one, until only the All-Father remains. Just as it seems he will win the day, Malekith appears. The two duel, King against King, but Malekith is fresh and though Odin manages to burn half of Malekith’s face, he’s been worn down by fighting a dozen of Malekith’s soldiers. Roz and the Warriors arrive just in time to see Malekith run Odin through.
Furious, Roz and the Warriors attack, killing the Dark Elf soldiers, but Malekith is able to slip away while the battle is raging.
That night, a funeral is held for Odin and the fallen Einherjar. His body is placed in a barge on the Gopul river, surrounded by flowers, a sword in his hand. With tears in his eyes, Thor gives the order and a barrage of fire arrows hit the boats, engulfing the fallen in flame as the waters carry them over the edge of the world, and into Valhalla.
In the dungeons, Loki, overcome by too many conflicting emotions to control, destroys the contents of his cell.
The next day, Thor proposes his plan to his mother - he will take Jane to Svartalfheim and use the Aether within her to draw the Dark Elves away from Asgard and her people. Frigga urges him against rash action, believing grief and guilt are clouding his mind, and when he refuses to listen, she forbids it.
“I am King! I will not be denied.”
“You are my son! I will not lose anyone else today. Jane will remain here, where we can protect her.”
Reluctant to overrule her at a time when stability is vital, Thor publicly bows to her wishes. Privately, he meets with Heimdall and his friends, to recruit them into his scheme to save Jane.
He visits Loki in the cells, offers him a chance at freedom if he helps them, and though Loki claims to be delighted by Odin’s death, the possibility of escape is too tempting to resist.
Siff is tasked with rescuing Jane, on the assumption that the guards will not suspect her, and then Siff, Hogun and Volstagg remain behind to hold off the guards as Thor, Loki, and Jane escape in one of the crashed Harrows which has not yet been removed from the palace.
The palace defences open fire on the Harrow, and a fleet of Skiffs is dispatched to stop them, but for once Thor actually has a plan. Just as the skiffs close in on the Harrow, Thor pushes Loki out and jumps after him with Jane in his arms, landing in a skiff piloted by Fandral and Roz Solomon.
When some of the Skiffs spot the ruse and pursue them, Fandral leaps from their Skiff to take on the attackers. Agent Solomon pauses, asking Jane how sure she is that Thor will protect her. When Jane tells her she has no doubts, Roz orders Thor to keep her in one piece, and jumps out after Fandral, much to Fandral’s delight.
Loki steers the Skiff into a cave, so narrow the wings of the Skiff throw up sparks as they scrape along the cave walls. As they fly, the air fills with the familiar lights of an Einstein-Rosen bridge.
On Earth, Darcy and Ian have finally tracked down Selvig. He’s being held in a mental health facility after being arrested running around Stonehenge naked, trying to warn people about the coming convergence. As they leave the facility with Selvig in tow, they see one of the portals created by the Convergence, as a murmuration of sparrows flies through a hole in the sky and then erupts from under their feet, thousands of little feathery bodies shrieking and slamming into them in their panic.
Loki’s portal has taken the Skiff to Svartalfheim, where they find Malekith and his Ark waiting for them, having sensed the Aether’s presence.
As Malekith watches, Loki draws a dagger and stabs Thor, slicing off his hand when he tries to call Mjölnir to defend himself. He throws Jane at Malekith’s feet, tells him she is a gift, and all he asks in exchange is the chance to watch Asgard burn.
Kurse recognises Loki from the dungeons and tells Malekith that Loki truly is an enemy of Asgard. Satisfied, Malekith begins to pull the Aether out of Jane. As soon as she’s free of it, Loki drops the illusion of Thor’s injuries, and Thor reclaims Mjölnir, striking the Aether with the full force of his lightning.
It explodes in a corona of energy and scarlet light, but when the dust clears, it is unharmed, and Thor watches in horror as it absorbs into Malekith, just as the Convergence begins.
Thor attempts to stop Malekith and his soldiers from leaving, but he is distracted by Algrim, who remains behind to battle him. The Kursed were designed to fight Aesir, and so even all Thor’s strength is not enough. Just as it appears he will be killed, Loki intervenes, allowing Kurse to stab him in order to put one of the Black Hole grenades he stole from Malekith’s soldiers onto Kurse’s belt, destroying him.
Thor rushes to Loki’s side as his sibling’s skin turns first grey and then black from the poison on Kurse’s blade. Thor promises he will tell their mother what Loki did, the sacrifice he made, and Loki dies in Thor’s arms.
As a dust storm begins, Jane and the grieving Thor take refuge in a cave. As they talk, Jane’s phone suddenly rings - it’s Richard, the guy she was on a date with at the start of the movie - and she realises they must be close to a portal. Following the signal, she finds the Vimto can and the car keys Darcy and Ian had thrown into the portal in the abandoned factory.
Walking through it, they find themselves back in London, Darcy’s car - abandoned after Ian threw their car keys into an interdimensional portal - waiting for them.
Back on the Dark World, the illusion of Loki’s body vanishes, and a figure in the armour of the Einherjar appears and takes the Skiff.
They find their friends at Selvig’s house, and Jane and Erik begin work on tracking the disturbances made by the Convergence, as Jane has figured out that Malekith intends to use the portals created to spread the Aether through all the Realms simultaneously. Using the readings Erik has taken, they calculate that the epicentre of the Convergence will be in Greenwich.
As they begin setting up Erik’s home-made gravitational anomaly detectors, now reverse engineered by Jane to cause anomalies rather than detect them, around the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, Malekith’s Ark appears over the river, plowing through the river’s edge and into the College’s green.
Thor battles Malekith, knocking them both through a series of portals that take them to Svartalfheim, Vanaheim, Alfheim, and back to London, as Jane opens artificial portals to remove Malekith’s soldiers from the battle.
One of Jane’s portals opens in Jotunheim, and a Frost Beast runs through it, attacking Jane and Selvig. Just then, from a natural portal to Asgard, Roz, Siff and the Warrior’s Three appear, and join the battle, Roz killing the beast with her new Asgardian sword.
A group of Dark Elves attack Darcy. Ian the intern, realising they are in a patch of low gravity, picks up a car and hurls it at them, saving Darcy’s life.
As they fall back through a portal to London, Thor and Malekith are separated, and by the time Thor makes it back to the College, the Realms are aligned, and Malekith has summoned the power of the Aether, the force of it keeping the others from approaching him.
Taking Jane’s portal creators, Thor forces his way into the energy field. He throws the first one like a spear, and Jane opens a portal as it hits, but Malekith uses the power of the Aether to regrow the arm Thor and Jane had destroyed. Summoning Mjölnir, he throws the last of the anomaly detectors into the ground behind Malekith and striking him with lightning, distracting him long enough to clear the air so the others can see what’s happening. He calls to Jane to help him, and Roz, seeing the plan, draws her gun and fires on Malekith, knocking him backwards into the portal which Jane opens up, sucking Malekith back to Svartalfheim.
Seeing Thor is unconscious, with the Ark about to collapse and crush him, and knowing Malekith will only return, Jane attaches the last of the portal creators to the Ark and activates it, sending it collapsing into Svartalfheim, where it crushes Malekith. Seeing their leader is defeated, the remaining Dark Elves surrender.
Some time later, on Asgard, Thor stands with his mother on the same balcony where he had spoken with Odin about Jane, only days before, looking out over Asgardia. Frigga congratulates him on his victory, and begins to talk about his coronation, but Thor stops her. He tells her he is not ready to be King, that he doesn’t want to be changed be the weight of the crown, not yet. Not for many years to come.
“Will you then leave Asgard leaderless? The Nine Realms unprotected?”
“Nay, mother. I would leave them in the hands of one better fitted to rule. I leave them under the protection of the All-Mother."
He kneels, and in the courtyard below, so do the Siff, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and the gathered ranks of the Einherjar.
Frigga’s coronation is a mirror of Thor’s own aborted crowning so long ago. Dignitaries from across the Nine Realms are gathered, Frost Giants, Light Elves, Dwarves of many sizes, even Fire Giants from Muspelheim are gathered. Her father, King Frey of Vanaheim sits in the place of honour, and in the first row of watchers stand five mortals, Jane, Darcy, Erik, Roz, and Ian the intern.
Frigga walks down an aisle flanked by an honour guard of Einherjar to kneel before the throne, which had been Odin’s, and Bor’s before him. Lady Idunn, keeper of the immortality of the Aesir, places the crown upon her head, and Thor hands her Gungnir, the spear of office.
She takes her throne, beautiful and regal, and calls Jane Foster forward.
“You have done much for Asgard, for the Realms, and for my son. On this day, I would grant you what few mortals have ever been offered before you. I grant you a boon, Jane Foster, Sorceress of Midgard. Ask of me what you will and it shall be yours.”
Despite Darcy’s whispering behind her about just how much gold there is in the room, Jane already knows what she wants.
“Midgard, Earth, can’t keep being used as a pawn or a battlefield by races we barely even know exist. Asgard, Svartalfheim, Jotunheim, you all treat us as though we were disposable. If we’re supposed to be part of the Nine Realms, we have a right to a say in how the Realms are governed. We have a right to know about threats so we can protect ourselves. Our lives may be short, but we’re not children!
“And, pardon me, your majesty, but nor are the other realms. I’ve seen a bit of how Asgard operates now and it’s cruel. You force the other worlds into submission by force, and then you’re surprised when they rebel against you. You have a chance to start fresh, to make things better instead of keeping them the same. That’s what I want.”
“There is wisdom in what you say. And honour in a woman who is offered all the riches of the Realm Eternal and chooses instead to bargain for the lives of others. Very well, let my first act as protector of the Nine Realms be the creation of a council, a Congress of Realms where all might have their say. And you, Jane Foster, would you speak for your own realm?”
“No, your majesty. I’ve got work I need to get back to. The readings from the Convergence are going to revolutionise… Sorry. No, I can think of someone much better suited.” And she points to where Roz Solomon stands, an earth pistol on one hip and an Asgardian sword on the other.
After the ceremony and the feasting that follows, Frigga retires to her rooms. A figure moves in the shadows, and as it steps into the camera’s view, Einherjar armour melts away to reveal Loki, dagger in hand. He steps up behind Frigga, blade raised, a look of conflicted sorrow on his face, and when Frigga turns, there’s no one behind her.
Instead, Loki heads for the Vault, where the Aether is being stored in preparation for it being sent off world. Enchanting a bottle of wine into a perfect mirror of it, Loki takes the Aether and vanishes.
Siff and Volstagg are dispatched to take the Aether to the Collector. unaware that it is a fake. As they hand it over, they explain that since the Tesseract is still on Asgard, the All-Mother thought it prudent not to keep a second Infinity Stones so close at hand. As they leave, the Collector strokes the case, whispering “one down, five to go” to himself.
Finally, in our post credit scene, we follow a figure draped in furs, dragging a sled through the frozen wastes of Niflheim. As he entered a mountain pass, a sheer rock face cracks open, revealing a dark chasm beyond. As the terrified figure watches, Hela steps out through the crack in the rock. She stretches, as though waking from a long sleep, and then turns her attention to the traveller. Summoning a necrosword, she advances on him and orders him, “tell me everything you know about Asgard”.
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