"No," Loki agrees. There isn't. "But we work with what we are given, do we not?"
It's possible to choose not to, of course. To not work at all, to permit it to happen, and perhaps for some that's satisfactory in its own way, but Loki can't see how.
"We make do. I see no reason not to take some small pleasure from what little there is about which to be pleased." And if Bruce does, well, that's entirely his own business -- but it is a shame. It truly is.
"I do not relish having been given the choice to fetch, either; to take your planet and present the Tesseract to my masters and betters. No, but I made that choice and I did enjoy it, after a fashion." He doesn't mind admitting as much either. The morality of that act means nothing to him. Morality in general has long since lost its meaning, so wildly has that pendulum swung here on Earth, so varied is its meaning and purpose elsewhere.
"I certainly don't relish having been born what I am. That I chose no more than you did your monster." He gives a sweeping gesture. "If creatures are built of happenstance and cause and effect then choice is merely a matter of scale. As is responsibility. Guilt. Enviable; no, but envy has nothing to do with any of this. One survives being pitiable. Moves on, or regrets, or more realistically both, but that hardly leaves one with no room for small satisfactions."
Which isn't, in the end, as optimistic as it might sound. It's simply that there is nothing else.
no subject
It's possible to choose not to, of course. To not work at all, to permit it to happen, and perhaps for some that's satisfactory in its own way, but Loki can't see how.
"We make do. I see no reason not to take some small pleasure from what little there is about which to be pleased." And if Bruce does, well, that's entirely his own business -- but it is a shame. It truly is.
"I do not relish having been given the choice to fetch, either; to take your planet and present the Tesseract to my masters and betters. No, but I made that choice and I did enjoy it, after a fashion." He doesn't mind admitting as much either. The morality of that act means nothing to him. Morality in general has long since lost its meaning, so wildly has that pendulum swung here on Earth, so varied is its meaning and purpose elsewhere.
"I certainly don't relish having been born what I am. That I chose no more than you did your monster." He gives a sweeping gesture. "If creatures are built of happenstance and cause and effect then choice is merely a matter of scale. As is responsibility. Guilt. Enviable; no, but envy has nothing to do with any of this. One survives being pitiable. Moves on, or regrets, or more realistically both, but that hardly leaves one with no room for small satisfactions."
Which isn't, in the end, as optimistic as it might sound. It's simply that there is nothing else.