okay here goes; Loki isn’t dead.
1. the most obvious giveaway is that Loki is a frost giant so upon death he would revert back to his natural state of having frost giant features, aka blue skin and red eyes. after being strangled to “death” by Thanos, one would expect a shot in the film in which his skin turns back to blue but that never happened, which started the suspicion (at least for me).
2. the second most obvious giveaway is that Loki is the God of mischief. he can canonically create highly realistic illusions and facades as seen in all the Thor movies. It wouldn’t be a reach if he had just created a clone or something of the sort to distract Thanos while he makes his escape, etc. some people have pointed out that he walks off screen while the Hulk was fighting Thanos and he stays off screen for a substantial amount of time, which gives him plenty of time to create another act of mischief; the clone/facade/distraction. I mean he had feigned his death multiple times before, surely he can trick Thanos if he tricked a God once (Thor).
3. this one is honestly a no brainer to me. Loki is an intelligent character. he is sly, cunning and obviously mischievous, but he also always has deeply thought out plans. him walking up to Thanos right as he was about to leave?? that made absolutely no sense to me, unless of course it had a purpose (I will touch on that later on). that entire scene and his proposal of being Thanos’ tour guide on Earth was incredibly out of character, sure, it seems like something he would do, but at that point? absolutely not. he was just handed a perfect solution to get out of there unscathed. Loki also always picked his words and phrases very carefully. he promised his “undying fidelity” and there was something specific about the delivery of that line that made me go, hey wait a second, he might be doing something here. Loki had also emphasised his heritage of being a frost giant (”rightful king of jotunheim”) which of course gets the audience to think of the blue giants, and like I said, his natural state.. almost to hint to us that if he doesn’t turn blue, something is amiss.
4. next, it was revealed that he was wielding a dagger. now think about this. why the hecking heck would anyone go up to Thanos, someone with two infinity stones, right as he was about to leave, and try to murder him with a tiny mf dagger, while being in plain sight to not only Thanos but all of his children?? much less that someone being Loki, one of the smartest and most cunning characters in the mcu?? to me it’s a straight up suicide mission. there was no way Loki thought that he would come out of that alive.
now here’s the thing; I think Loki had to convince Thanos of his death in order to do something else, or get someone to do something specific. and what better way to convince Thanos that he’s dead, then to have Thanos “kill” him, himself? I have no idea how this would piece itself in avengers 4 but I’m almost certain that that whole facade was for a greater purpose. After all, what is a God of Mischief if he can’t even cheat death?