I watched this movie a very long time ago so my memory could be hazy. I also might be reading too much into it.
Asgard is destined to be completely destroyed in a catastrophe called Ragnarok. This is something from Norse mythology which I don’t know anything about but is a popular theme in popular media. The whole film is about Thor trying to deal with Rigmaroll.
His solution in the end is to evacuate Asgards inhabitants and remove them from the land, let Ragnarok happen which also destroys the Bad Guy. So Asgard is destroyed but Asgardians live on. His rationalisation is that Asgard is not made by its land, geography etc. but its people, the Asgardians, and they can possibly make another Asgard later on unburdened by predetermined destruction.
Now I gotta be honest, overall I thought the movie was alright. The Bad Guy was terrible and uninteresting. But I liked the comedy in it. And this interpetation of Ragnarok is pretty clever IMO. The problem I have is that this complete disentanglement of the people and their land is incorrect. I guess in a fictional treat slop based on magical mythology it would never come up. But IRL the people and the land make each other. There is a recent Prolekult documentary which focuses on how an integral part of capital accumulation is the dispossesion of land from people which I am not intelligent enough to rehash.
I think this could be ignored but then you realise that this movie is by and (mostly) for cultures that are built on colonialism and settlerism, processes that are centuries old and still ongoing. Downplaying the ills of robbing people of their land and sovreignty is done on a regular basis. Palestinians are currently being robbed of their lives and their land at the moment. How do Marvel treat enjoyers understand the implications of removing all Palestinians from Palestine and relocating them to a neighbouring country?
As I said I am probably reading too much into it.
I think the Asgardians in this situation are more refugees than settlers.
It’s muddied by Thor conflating Asgardian culture with Asgardian nationhood, which is such a white/Western cultural mentality.
Also Norway just cheerfully gives them the town to move into in the sequel, and doesn’t seem to have any issue with it becoming an independent city-state and renamed to ‘New Asgard’. Imagine if European nations were so generous with actual refugees! Norway wasn’t even remotely responsible for the destruction of the original Asgard, but they cheerfully give Asgardians sovereignty over one of their towns. Real refugees are lucky if they get food and a place to rest.
So the Asgardian situation in Ragnarok and Love and Thunder is actually an idealized example of how to treat refugees, but unfortunately that example will be lost on most viewers because the Asgardians are white (yes they have non-white people but they’re all culturally white) and so the idea of them being comparable to actual refugees won’t even cross the thoughts of those who need to think it.
I thought Thanos killed them all or something like that. In one of the avengers movies. Which slop had them living in Norway?
Thanos’s MO is to kill half, infinity war had New Asgard in norway