27 Aug 05
Originally posted by howardgeeHe is crafty and malicious, but is also heroic: in that aspect he can be compared with the trickster from North American myths.
Could it possibly be more of a joke than any existing religion?
Loki is often called the Sly One, the Trickster, the Shape Changer, and the Sky Traveler.
The trickster god is a complex character, a master of guile and deception. Loki was not so much a figure of unmitigated badness as a kind of celestial con man, who always managed to persuade the gods to give him another chance. Some anthropologists have compared him to Coyote, a trickster figure of Native American mythology. Loki can at times be reminiscent of the Chinese Monkey King whose persona in myth underwent changes over the centuries.