Note: CONTAINS AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR SPOILERS (obviously)
Avengers: Infinity War quickly establishes Thanos (Josh Brolin) as the biggest, baddest villain in the MCU.
In the opening of the movie, he smooshes The Hulk with ease, has his minion impale Heimdall... and completes the hat trick by choking Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to death when the trickster god attempts to stab him.
So that's it. No more fake-outs. This time Loki is surely dead, right?
Well, not according to reddit user radkarth, who has an intriguing theory that points to yet another trick from the Asgardian god of mischief.
The theory rests on Loki being right-handed. When he fights with his staff or the mind-controlling sceptre, he holds them in his right hand.
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However, when he attempts to stab Thanos, he uses his left hand. When else has he swapped hands in the MCU? During his fight with the dark elves in Thor: The Dark World, just before he was 'killed' by Kurse.
Of course, Loki survived that first battle, and was able to replace Odin and take over Asgard without anyone realising for months, if not years.
Could the left-handed wielding occur because in both instances, Loki had created a mirror image of himself, an illusion that appeared to die to trick his enemies? It would certainly be a sneaky way of Marvel hiding the truth about his fate in plain sight.
As much as we like the theory, we have to admit that it's not watertight. It looks as though Loki switches hands during the Dark World fight scene, and Thor: Ragnarok establishes that he is skilled at fighting with a dagger in each hand. So things aren't as clear as we would like.
However, there is another theory that Loki will return for Avengers 4 – thanks to time travel!
So what do you think? At this point we wouldn't be surprised to see that Loki was still alive, although Marvel would have a really hard time ever convincing us that he was dead again if that's the case.
If the MCU has established anything, it's that you can never be sure when it comes to the god of mischief.
Avengers 4 will be released in the UK on April 26, 2019, and in the US on May 3, 2019.
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