Loki, Marginality and Conformity
I do not understand community solely as something warm or harmonious, but also as something shaped by norms, belonging and exclusion. This makes it interesting to examine how Loki relates to social life – not only in myth, but also through lived experience. In this paper, I explore Loki’s relationship to community, social life, and the margins.
As I have come to understand it, conformity involves adapting to a social script within a group. This can be done actively – by going along with others, agreeing or responding in expected ways – or passively, by remaining silent, not disrupting the atmosphere or avoiding breaking the flow of interaction. Conformity can create ease, cohesion and smooth social interaction, but it can also produce false agreement, silence dissent and render norms invisible. Based on my own experience, my degree of conformity varies depending on my energy level, how comfortable I feel in a given setting and the content of the conversation. I often experience conformity as something that requires effort. This is not necessarily because I dislike conformity, but rather because I may lack contexts in which I can be conformist without constantly regulating myself. For me, nonconformity can, in theory, feel like a relief and an expression of authenticity, but in practice it can also create friction, discomfort, and social cost. At the same time, as Bergland (2016) points out, conformity itself can be uncomfortable – albeit more on an internal level than an external one.
I argue that Loki is closely connected to the concepts of conformity and nonconformity, particularly in light of Wolf’s (2020, p. 107) discussion of his role in destabilizing social order and bringing about change through boundary-breaking. This aligns with the idea that nonconformity is important for breaking stagnation and enabling change (HealthResearchFunding.org, 2022). This function is especially evident in his speech. Krause-Loner (2003, p. 36) highlights how Lokasenna demonstrates Loki’s position outside the established hierarchy, allowing him to attack and criticize it. This provides a clear example of nonconformity as a form of critique of authority (HealthResearchFunding.org, 2022).
This understanding of conformity is closely connected to marginality. While Gurung and Kollmair (2005) discuss marginality as a societal structure, I approach it primarily as a relationship to what is considered mainstream and normative – something that can arise in real time within groups, conversations and workplaces. I have a clear example of this from a workplace setting, where I, as a passing trans man, was sitting with male colleagues who began speaking negatively about trans people, in an unspoken assumption that everyone present was cisgender. Without their knowledge, I was part of the group they were talking negatively about. This illustrates that marginality is not only about visible exclusion, but also about being present within a community where one is assumed to belong, while that belonging is not actually shared.
Loki’s connection to marginality can be illustrated, for example, by Cooksey (1998, p. 50), who describes how trickster figures threaten to disrupt the center, dissolve the boundaries of propriety and order and break social taboos. Weaver and Mora (2016) describe the trickster as speaking to the center from the periphery, as a creative boundary-crosser who offers solutions to problems, as well as explanations and critiques of the world as it is. This closely aligns with the arguments of Wolf (2020) and Krause-Loner (2003) discussed above, reinforcing the connection between nonconformity and marginality.
When conformity, nonconformity and marginality are understood in this way, Loki does not primarily emerge as a god of harmonious, structured community. I want to relate this to my own experiences within heathen contexts. In my experience, shared rituals and traditional blót often require stability, predictability and broad social acceptance, which can be understood as a form of social structure in Turner’s sense (1969, pp. 96–97). In such contexts, Loki may easily be perceived as destabilizing, occupying a nonconformist and marginal position. Based on these experiences, it is not self-evident that Loki fits within traditional forms of community. However, he may still have an indirect function in relation to community. He may be most effective in individual work involving change, self-reflection, discomfort and disruption, which the individual Lokean then brings back into the community. I do not have direct experience of a purely Lokean community, but I imagine it might resemble what Turner (1969, pp. 96–97) describes as communitas, while also involving a new form of conformity. What is nonconformist in one context may, in another, become a new norm.
I therefore see Loki less as a god of harmonious community or social life, and more as a god who operates in relation to community: at its edges, through its tensions, and within the movements that occur when norms are challenged and communities change. I thus argue that he is a god of the margins, and that from this position he makes visible how communities function – what they require, and what they exclude. In this way, it becomes easier to understand how community works in practice – both what holds it together and what does not fit within it.
These conclusions are based on reflections on my own experiences in social contexts, my relationship with Loki and my engagement with the texts presented throughout this course. They resonate with my life and practice in that they help me navigate social situations, both in everyday life and in heathen contexts.
Sources
Bergland, C. (2016). Nonconformity Has Counter-Intuitive Benefits, Study Finds. Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201608/nonconformity-has-counter-intuitive-benefits-study-finds (Accessed: [2026-04-25]).
Cooksey, T.L. (1998). ‘Hero of the Margin: The Trickster as Deterritorialized Animal’. Thalia, 18(1/2), pp. 50–61.
Gurung, G.S. and Kollmair, M. (2005). Marginality: Concepts and their Limitations. Department of Geography, University of Zurich.
Health Research Funding (2022). 13 Pros and Cons of Conformity in Society. Available at: https://healthresearchfunding.org/13-pros-and-cons-of-conformity-in-society/ (Accessed: [2026-04-25]).
Krause-Loner, S.C. (2003). Scar-Lip, Sky-Walker, and Mischief-Monger: The Norse God Loki as Trickster [Master’s thesis]. Miami University. Available at: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1063416355 (Accessed: [2026-04-25]).
Weaver, S. and Mora, R.A. (2016). ‘Introduction: Tricksters, humour and activism’. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(5), pp. 479–485. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877915595302
Wolf, A. (2020). ‘The Liminality of Loki’. Scandinavian-Canadian Studies, 27, pp. 106–113. https://doi.org/10.29173/scancan179 Turner, V. (1969). The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: Aldine Publishing.