Director Taika Waititi recently shared details about Valkyrie's story in Thor: Love & Thunder. Following the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the highly anticipated Thor sequel will be Marvel Studios' second Phase 4 movie release in 2022. The superhero film will follow the titular hero as he picks up the pieces of his life after the events of Avengers: Endgame. With Thanos defeated but his homeworld destroyed, Thor searches for a new purpose in his life during what Waititi has called the character's mid-life crisis.
Tessa Thompson also returns to the MCU as Valkyrie, the last surviving member of a specialized group of Asgardian warriors. After joining Thor during their escape from the gladiatorial garbage world of Sakaar in Thor: Ragnarok, Valkyrie helped relocate the remaining Asgardians to New Asgard in Norway, where she served as the de facto ruler while Thor was depressed following the Avengers' defeat against Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. In the upcoming sequel film, Valkyrie holds the title of King of Asgard, the official ruler over her people.
In an interview with EW, Waititi shared story details about what Valkyrie will be up to in Thor: Love and Thunder. The director explains that the warrior is now on the throne of New Asgard and dealing with the bureaucracy that comes with ruling a country. Read what Waititi said of Valkyrie below.
"She's got to do all the things that they never tell you about when you're supposed to rule the people, which is deal with all of the infrastructure and figure out the economy and have delegates visit from other countries. So, she's spending a lot of her time not fighting, and all of her new battles have to do with ruling her people."
Setting up a whole new home for a group of aliens on planet Earth, inside a sovereign state, would bring layers of complications never before seen in a Marvel film. Valkyrie, a woman who has been fighting for millennia, must now set aside her sword and flying horse Aragon as New Asgard's leader and compromise with other nations' heads of state. Thor: Love and Thunder's promotional trailers have already shown Valkyrie's disinterest in such bureaucratic matters.
Much of Thor's story has been kept tightly under wraps, including what role Valkyrie will play in the hero's journey. Although she may not accompany Thor on his trek across the universe where he is slated to team up with his rock friend Korg (Waititi), battle Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), and reunite with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Valkyrie has the important task of protecting her people and guiding them as they try to rebuild their lives. Although it seems that the warrior may not wish to retain her bureaucratic title as she appeared to be disinterested, audiences can only speculate as to how she will fit into the overarching story until Thor: Love and Thunder is released on July 8.
Source: EW
