Loki is Norse mythology's most complex figure and one of world mythology's most sophisticated trickster archetypes. He is not the Norse equivalent of the Devil — a comparison often made and consistently misleading. He is the Aesir's companion, Odin's blood-brother, the cleverest being in the nine worlds, the shape-shifter who produces both the greatest gifts the gods possess and the greatest disasters that befall them — and sometimes both in the same story. He is essential to the divine order and constitutionally incompatible with it. He is chaos in a cosmos that requires some chaos to function but cannot survive too much of it.
Loki's gifts to the gods are among the most significant objects in Norse mythology. It is Loki who obtains Odin's spear Gungnir, Freyr's golden boar Gullinbursti, Freyr's ship Skidbladnir, Sif's golden hair (having first cut off the original), and most importantly Mjolnir — Thor's hammer, the weapon that protects the gods and humanity from the giants. He obtains these by commissioning the dwarves under conditions of extreme creative pressure (wagering his own head), and the results are the divine arsenal that sustains the cosmic order. Without Loki's chaos, the gods would be less equipped.
Loki's disasters are equally significant. He engineers the death of Baldr — the most beloved of the gods, the one whose death signals the beginning of the end — by discovering that mistletoe was the single thing not bound by Frigg's oath of protection and directing blind Höðr's hand to throw it. He insults all the gods at the feast of Ægir in the Lokasenna, speaking truths too uncomfortable to be forgiven. He fathers the Midgard Serpent Jörmungandr, the wolf Fenrir and the death-goddess Hel with the giantess Angrboda — three beings who will contribute to Ragnarök. He mothers (as a mare) the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, Odin's mount.
The Trickster archetype: the trickster is one of the most widely distributed archetypes in world mythology — appearing as Coyote in Native American traditions, Anansi in West African and Caribbean traditions, Hermes/Mercury in Greco-Roman mythology, Iktomi in Lakota tradition, Eshu/Exu in Yoruba tradition and many others. The trickster's consistent characteristics across these traditions illuminate what Loki represents: the trickster breaks rules, crosses boundaries, defies hierarchies, exposes pretensions, enables changes that the existing order cannot accommodate, and pays a price for doing so. The trickster is necessary because no system — divine or human — can renew itself without something that operates outside its rules. Loki is the principle of creative disruption that prevents the Aesir from becoming too settled, too rigid, too certain of their own permanence. Ragnarök is the consequence of his binding — when Loki is imprisoned, the chaos is not eliminated but suppressed until it explodes catastrophically.
After the death of Baldr, the gods bind Loki beneath the earth — his entrails used as his chains, a serpent dripping venom onto his face, his wife Sigyn holding a bowl to catch the venom. When the bowl fills and she must empty it, the drops of venom cause Loki to writhe in such agony that his movements cause earthquakes. He will remain bound until Ragnarök — at which point he will break free and pilot the ship Naglfar (made from the fingernails and toenails of the dead) against the gods.
The binding of Loki is the mythological image of a system that has tried to solve its chaos problem by eliminating chaos. The result, the myth suggests, is not order but suppression — and suppression eventually produces a more catastrophic release than the original chaos would have. This is remarkably consistent with what depth psychology describes when discussing the consequences of repressing the shadow: the suppressed material does not disappear but accumulates energy, eventually breaking through in destructive rather than constructive form. Loki suppressed causes Ragnarök; Loki integrated is the trickster who helps the gods and occasionally creates manageable disasters that the cosmic system can absorb.