Loki (2021)

[Dire_Flumph]

You think that Strange taught Rogers some infinity-stone sorcery 101? And offscreen at that? Shirley you jest.

Definitely not canon, but my assumption was that Endgame-Steve's first stop on the "Put the infinity stones back" tour was 2012 New York the day after the Chitauri Invasion to ask for the Ancient One's help.

[Ramza00]

Names

Spoiler: Names

Show

“I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.”

Anyone notice the Judge calls Loki by the name Loki Laufeyson, while almost all instances of Loki after the first movie he does not call himself Laufeyson or Odinson, but instead Loki of Asgard and various variants. (There are a few exceptions based off specific contexts where Loki feels closer to Odin at the moment. But that is getting side track.)

I am 45% sure this is going to come up again, for Loki does not like it when people call him a name he does not self adopt, much like a disguise. Loki is Mercurial in Mood, but there are certain things that get him quick to anger.

[Clertar]

Names

Spoiler: Names

Show

Anyone notice the Judge calls Loki by the name Loki Laufeyson

Spoiler: Loki's patronimic

Show

I was thinking that this might be subtly setting up the scene for the rogue Loki---maybe that one has embraced more his ice giant lineage? He does have a blue mouth, according to the girl (but maybe he just eats a lot of that candy?).

Speaking of that girl, that fake-ass medieval church was a big production F for me on an otherwise very nice episode.

[Lord Vukodlak]

If his goal was to make the Sacred Timeline feel like nothing happened, Cap would need to find a way to:

• put the mind stone back into the scepter.
• put the space stone back into the tesseract.
• put the reality stone back into Jane Foster (lol).
• give the soul stone back to the Red Skull (awkward).
• give the time stone back to the Ancient One (except that's also where Loki1130 is from).
• and for the power stone, fix the issue with Guardians-1 Thanos having travelled to and died in the future.

See some of these issues in animated form.

No, the Ancient One asked the Avengers to return the stones for the sake of the alternate universes they were creating, that's all.

Well given the access to more Pym Particles he could have had all the extra equipment shrunken and in his pockets.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Well given the access to more Pym Particles he could have had all the extra equipment shrunken and in his pockets.

Thank you. I am adopting this as head-canon. That has bothered me every single time I watched Endgame.

[Millstone85]

Okay guys, but take a look back at the Ancient One's exposition:

"If I give up the time stone to help your reality, I am dooming my own. The infinity stones create what you experience as the flow of time. Remove one of the stones, and that flow splits. Now, this may benefit your reality, but my new one not so much. In this new branch reality, without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness, our world would be overrun. Millions would suffer."



Now, granted, when Banner proposes to return the stones, the dark timeline disappears from the Ancient One's holographic presentation, which now shows only one bright timeline.

But I think that only works if the Avengers manage to quietly remove and return the stones, which is far from what happened.

To me, the timeline did split, but the Avengers made sure the new reality would have all the stones it needed to resist the forces of darkness.

[Tyndmyr]

So, first episode.

It is...somewhat less surprising of a premise than Wandavision was, but more so than Falcon & Winter Buddies. Overall, neither immensely in love or hate with it yet, but sufficiently interested enough to watch a second episode and see where they take it.

More spoilery plot discussion below, of course:

Spoiler

Show

So, the TVA is kind of a fun premise in theory. Unfortunately, I've seen Umbrella Academy, and this is quite literally a knock off of 'em. This show is leaning pretty hard on what came before, to the extent of including...a very large amount of flashback for a pilot episode. I sort of get this in that honestly we can't expect people to remember Dark World, etc in detail, but it makes the pacing feel a bit slower if you do.

Loki is of course fun when he gets to actually chew the screen as a villain, and he gets to do that...a little. He also ends up being the butt of a number of jokes, many of which are essentially replays of old pratfalls from the films. Liked seeing Loki falling in Thor Ragnarok? Well, we'll do that again. Liked seeing Thor get electrocuted in Thor Ragnarok? Well, we'll do that again. Liked seeing a control collar fitted on Thor to basically enslave him? Guess what...

Owen Wilson is a really odd casting choice. His voice is really distinctive, and thus brings to mind his usual sort of character which is...honestly kind of reflected in this, but not wholly? It seems kind of...not fitting. Perhaps intentional, don't know yet.

However, the villain also being Loki is...a fun idea. I'm pretty on board with the idea of seeing a Loki v Loki confrontation.

As for how time travel or what this series does to magic v tech...honestly, I have no idea. I think MCU just decided that consistency here wasn't something they cared about anymore?

[Ramza00]

Magic vs Tech and other things, that seem "so familiar"

Spoiler: Responding to Tyndmyr's spoiler block quote

Show

So, first episode.

So, the TVA is kind of a fun premise in theory. Unfortunately, I've seen Umbrella Academy, and this is quite literally a knock off of 'em. This show is leaning pretty hard on what came before, to the extent of including...a very large amount of flashback for a pilot episode. I sort of get this in that honestly we can't expect people to remember Dark World, etc in detail, but it makes the pacing feel a bit slower if you do.

Loki is of course fun when he gets to actually chew the screen as a villain, and he gets to do that...a little. He also ends up being the butt of a number of jokes, many of which are essentially replays of old pratfalls from the films. Liked seeing Loki falling in Thor Ragnarok? Well, we'll do that again. Liked seeing Thor get electrocuted in Thor Ragnarok? Well, we'll do that again. Liked seeing a control collar fitted on Thor to basically enslave him? Guess what...

Owen Wilson is a really odd casting choice. His voice is really distinctive, and thus brings to mind his usual sort of character which is...honestly kind of reflected in this, but not wholly? It seems kind of...not fitting. Perhaps intentional, don't know yet.

However, the villain also being Loki is...a fun idea. I'm pretty on board with the idea of seeing a Loki v Loki confrontation.

As for how time travel or what this series does to magic v tech...honestly, I have no idea. I think MCU just decided that consistency here wasn't something they cared about anymore?

We are going to see lots that is "familiar" for we are going to see lots of similar images to stuff that came before. You mentioned Umbrella Academy which I have not seen (how is it?), but might as well add Doctor Who to that list and and a whole host of other things.

Also since we are going to play around with Earth / Midgard time we are going to get more images, more mimetics / mimicry / memes / imitations and representations, of things we are already half-familiar with since via traveling through time in a fictional tv show is not literally seeing time as it actually was but instead seeing a time that is both familiar and alienating to us. All things presented in relation to our self / the director and other talent's idea of our pseudo-self.

Sidenote I take it this TVA deals with Earth / Midgard and there are similar TVA divisions for other planets? When Groot's plant people mess with time do the Hunters / Minutemen / Judge / etc look like Plant People?

Loki is of course fun when he gets to actually chew the screen as a villain, and he gets to do that...a little. He also ends up being the butt of a number of jokes, many of which are essentially replays of old pratfalls from the films. Liked seeing Loki falling in Thor Ragnarok? Well, we'll do that again. Liked seeing Thor get electrocuted in Thor Ragnarok? Well, we'll do that again. Liked seeing a control collar fitted on Thor to basically enslave him? Guess what...

Yep we are going to get lots of situational comedy in this tv show. Perhaps we can call Loki a "sitcom" though I do not think most people will use this term for it is not set at a diner, or a person's home, but hey wait a minute, hijacks at work is a common sitcom location 🧐 Hopefully Loki like Bebop mixes enough other "genres" in the story that it feels fresh and you get a mixture that feels fun instead of stale and overly familiar in a way that is not interesting.

Owen Wilson is a really odd casting choice. His voice is really distinctive, and thus brings to mind his usual sort of character which is...honestly kind of reflected in this, but not wholly? It seems kind of...not fitting. Perhaps intentional, don't know yet.

However, the villain also being Loki is...a fun idea. I'm pretty on board with the idea of seeing a Loki v Loki confrontation.

I had fun with the pilot, but it was completely carried by the Charm and Charisma of characters like Owen Wilson, Tom Hiddleston, Wunmi Mosaku (the police guard chasing Loki), etc. This is not a fault, this is just saying those characters breathe the script alive and make it "real."

I hope they are getting paid well for these 6 episodes of TV.

As for how time travel or what this series does to magic v tech...honestly, I have no idea. I think MCU just decided that consistency here wasn't something they cared about anymore?

My read of the TVA is that it is another plane of existence. We been told time flows differently there, also the infinity stones are inert in the TVA. Different rules of physics entirely in this place. Thus some things we call "magic" with a language word do not work for the physics of that reality says they do not work.

In addition besides having the Loki's God All-Speak, we also learn the TVA people can have languages downloaded into them. Thus what to call this thing is merely a Language Game. It is more about "understanding the rules" than actually finding the best word to speak the rules once you are familiar enough to speak it. But hey it is not just an inner conversation between Loki and the TVA it is also a meta conversation for us the audience on the other side of the 4th wall of the sitcom.

Oh as Psyren brought up on Page 4, the three space lizards as Loki calls them, the 3 timekeepers, may literally be The Living Tribunal, or just someone who plays in that multi-verse level of scale. The Living Tribunal in the comics is a true neutral god who is multi-versial and all powerful much like D&D's Ao in the Forgotten Realms. He does not have much agency, his job is to maintain some form of balance not just in a single universe but all universes and he is a universal constant between all the timelines and realms. Oh yeah this Ao like god has 3 heads, similar to some art of roman Janus. One looking to the left, the right, and right in front where a normal human face would be.

We do not know if the MCU Movie / Disney+ adaptions are adapting The Living Tribunal with The Time Keepers, or just another being who plays in the multiversal scale like the TLT god.

[Tyndmyr]

Re: Ramza:

Umbrella Academy is pretty fun, I think. Im going to get slightly more into it in the spoilers, so if you want to go into it completely blind, watch it first, but I'll try to avoid as many specifics as I can.

Spoiler

Show

We are going to see lots that is "familiar" for we are going to see lots of similar images to stuff that came before. You mentioned Umbrella Academy which I have not seen (how is it?), but might as well add Doctor Who to that list and and a whole host of other things.

Nah, I don't mean just "shows that play with time travel tropes" I mean specifically a large bureaucracy (called the Temporal Commission, in UA's case) that has a mysterious plan for all of time organized by a small cabal in the know, and carried out by a bunch of obedient underlings who are based in an otherworldly massive headquarters with its own timeline, and dispatches small teams of agents to clean up events anywhere within time that diverge from the plan.

I mean, it is literally almost identical. To the point of using the same comedic sort of introductory expository mini-film in universe. It's unsettling how close it is. The only real difference is that UA has *far* more distinct characterization for members of this organization. But, flip side, it is episode 1, so that may develop.

Sidenote I take it this TVA deals with Earth / Midgard and there are similar TVA divisions for other planets? When Groot's plant people mess with time do the Hunters / Minutemen / Judge / etc look like Plant People?

Probably not, honestly. This seems...strangely earth centric, but they don't seem at all limited from a technological point. We don't see any appearance change to match earth cultures, though? And they only discuss earth events from their perspective, but are not surprised by Loki's discussion of the nine realms, and have data on him from outside earth? I don't want to call it a plot hole yet, because we've only seen one episode, but it seems as if they are not limited in any planetary fashion, and are yet still extremely earth centric. Perhaps it will be expanded on as we go.

[Eldan]

This... felt like a lot of setup with no payoff yet. Like, it was one very long exposition dump with not much happening yet. There were a few fun scenes, sure, but overall, I'm not more than cautiously optimistic. It's the Show telling us what it is going to be about, but not really starting yet.

[The Glyphstone]

Re: Ramza:

Umbrella Academy is pretty fun, I think. Im going to get slightly more into it in the spoilers, so if you want to go into it completely blind, watch it first, but I'll try to avoid as many specifics as I can.

Spoiler

Show

Nah, I don't mean just "shows that play with time travel tropes" I mean specifically a large bureaucracy (called the Temporal Commission, in UA's case) that has a mysterious plan for all of time organized by a small cabal in the know, and carried out by a bunch of obedient underlings who are based in an otherworldly massive headquarters with its own timeline, and dispatches small teams of agents to clean up events anywhere within time that diverge from the plan.

I mean, it is literally almost identical. To the point of using the same comedic sort of introductory expository mini-film in universe. It's unsettling how close it is. The only real difference is that UA has *far* more distinct characterization for members of this organization. But, flip side, it is episode 1, so that may develop.



Probably not, honestly. This seems...strangely earth centric, but they don't seem at all limited from a technological point. We don't see any appearance change to match earth cultures, though? And they only discuss earth events from their perspective, but are not surprised by Loki's discussion of the nine realms, and have data on him from outside earth? I don't want to call it a plot hole yet, because we've only seen one episode, but it seems as if they are not limited in any planetary fashion, and are yet still extremely earth centric. Perhaps it will be expanded on as we go.

Spoiler

Show

To be fair, the idea of 'Time Police' is vastly older than either Loki or UA. I could probably think of half a dozen examples without even visiting the TVTropes page on it.

[Ramza00]

This... felt like a lot of setup with no payoff yet. Like, it was one very long exposition dump with not much happening yet. There were a few fun scenes, sure, but overall, I'm not more than cautiously optimistic. It's the Show telling us what it is going to be about, but not really starting yet.

Spoiler: Setup

Show

This episode was 45 minutes if we ignore the 6 minutes of credits.

About 22 minutes take place in a single room, plus the in between scenes where Loki was trying to escape that room and the greater TVA, before returning to the exact same room.

What was the Loki line again?

For the record, this really does feel like a killing-me [exposition-me] kind of a room.

Half of the episode was in the most boring "brutalism" room possible (with bad lighting). This was done on purpose, but it was also kind of soul-crushing.
-----

And the 22 minutes in the Exposition Room do not count earlier Exposition such as the Trial Room or the Waiting Line for the Trial Room.

[Psyren]

So, the TVA is kind of a fun premise in theory. Unfortunately, I've seen Umbrella Academy, and this is quite literally a knock off of 'em.

To be fair, the idea of 'Time Police' is vastly older than either Loki or UA. I could probably think of half a dozen examples without even visiting the TVTropes page on it.

Putting aside (as The Glyphstone said) that Time Police are a concept far older than both properties, Marvel's TVA (1986) vastly predates Umbrella Academy's Temps Commission (2008). In other words, UA knocked off Marvel, not the other way around.

If his goal was to make the Sacred Timeline feel like nothing happened, Cap would need to find a way to:

• put the mind stone back into the scepter.
• put the space stone back into the tesseract.
• put the reality stone back into Jane Foster (lol).
• give the soul stone back to the Red Skull (awkward).
• give the time stone back to the Ancient One (except that's also where Loki1130 is from).
• and for the power stone, fix the issue with Guardians-1 Thanos having travelled to and died in the future.

See some of these issues in animated form.

No, the Ancient One asked the Avengers to return the stones for the sake of the alternate universes they were creating, that's all.

Again, there were no "alternate universes." He puts a stone back at roughly the moment it was taken, the branch disappears, one timeline. Professor Hulk and Cap even literally say this in Endgame before Steve leaves: "trim all the branches." The TVA judge then further confirms that what he did preserved the sacred timeline rather than disrupting it.

As for how he did all the things on your list, it was the Ancient One's idea (or more specifically, hers and Professor Hulk's). Going back to her first to get aid solves everything.She might even have gone with him. It's literally not important enough to dwell on just by applying a modicum of thought.

The one place where Rogers might have made a separate timeline that the TVA would have to deal with, is the one where he spent his life with Peggy. In which case, the TVA might have actually been the reason Old Steve made it back to the Sacred Timeline, picking him up from his branch and dropping him off on the bench there, and had their Minutemen reset the other one with one of those devices of theirs. All those endless niggling questions about "did Steve save Howard Stark/save JFK/stop 9-11/etc." would be rendered utterly irrelevant in an instant, which I suspect Marvel would find appealing.

I hope they are getting paid well for these 6 episodes of TV.

Part of what makes Disney+'s experiment so fun is that unlike Netflix, they can afford to pay moviestar salaries even for a tv show.

And I have few doubts that the gamble is paying off; the amount of WandaVision merch I've seen being bought up by my friends has been staggering, far moreso than even Avengers stuff. Just wait for Halloween when Wanda and Vision are the most popular couples costume, much like Joker/Deadpool-and-Harley Quinn were that one year.

[Ramza00]

Spoiler

Show

To be fair, the idea of 'Time Police' is vastly older than either Loki or UA. I could probably think of half a dozen examples without even visiting the TVTropes page on it.

I am earnestly asking but do not expect an Answer the curiosity got the better of me.

Spoiler: Oldest Time Police

Show

I am curious from a sociological standpoint when is the earliest Time Police story takes place in?

Most of the Time Machine Stuff happen after HG Wells' The Time Machine (1895), likewise Police are much older than that, but how we visualize Police and their control of space is a phenomena that is tied to the rise of the Automobile. We saw the style of Police change, but also the number of Police employed by the economy as a percent of the population increase when Cars became more popular, and people could travel large distance very quickly.

I am curious for this trope would be something within "Living Society Memory" but also older than most people's lives. It would be new for our Grandparents or Parents, but familiar for us and I find that type of liminality to be interesting. New but not-new. It was always like this vs no I remember a time when it was different.

-----

Something something Jean Baudrillard with how he had an idea our ability to create images and thus also photograms / lenses to view the pictures we create, have created an abundance of Simulcra experiences, something where we feel like we are in a simulation for so much of our lives are now projected with numbers and myths, and people like the Police increase the perception for they are now monitoring all aspect of our community, and now we have Time Police who monitor all of time, past, present, and future. I am thing of this Baudrillard quote.

If we were able to take as the finest allegory of simulation the Borges tale where the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up exactly covering the territory (but where, with the decline of the Empire this map becomes frayed and finally ruined, a few shreds still discernible in the deserts - the metaphysical beauty of this ruined abstraction, bearing witness to an imperial pride and rotting like a carcass, returning to the substance of the soil, rather as an aging double ends up being confused with the real thing), this fable would then have come full circle for us, and now has nothing but the discrete charm of second-order simulacra.l

[Links to Wikipedia about this tale]The Borgles Tale: On Exactitude in Science
Map Territory Relation
Abstraction today is no longer that of the map,
the double,
the mirror or
the concept.

Simulation is no longer that of a territory,
a referential being
or a substance.

It is the generation by models of a real without origin
or reality:
a hyperreal.

The territory no longer precedes the map,
nor survives it.

Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory - precession of simulacra - it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map.

It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, but our own.

The desert of the real itself.

The most real thing is "Hyperreality" per Baudrillard and Umberto Eco. Hyperreality is not the real of the concrete world but the mental real, and how we create images inside of our mind and how culture also does this creating images inside of our mind by providing the various traces which we then build off of as foundations. And what is the foundation is lost to us. Baudrillard called Hyperreality "A real without origin or reality" Eco called it "The authentic fake."

Disneyland is often compared to Hyperreality for it is all manufactured places, fairy tales give physical form and so on. Specifically this sign at Disneyland.



So I am curious about what is the Origin of Time Cops even though there are dozens upon dozens of them now, for it is an origin point we can probably pin down. It happened in living memory, even if it is beyond my individual memory. And if no one knows that too is okay I am just curious

And Loki as the Mercury Like Trickster Fellow plays with this themes I said about Hyperreality, it would never work his schemes and misdirections with "ILLUSIONS" if the illusions are so close to reality that we could not tell what is real and what is the authentic fake that Loki is hiding behind as a mask. For that is what Loki does, he wears masks to avoid feelings of vulnerability. Likewise he took so much delight with the projector for he feels that projector showed him the real feelings his adopted mother, father, and brother had for him when they did not know they were being recorded. That was not fake to Loki, that was more real than any experience he actually experienced via the senses to Loki for those people did not know the TVA or whatever techno-magic was keeping a record of that reality. The invisible man can see us even when we lie.

Spoiler: Names, One Last Thing

Show

I mentioned earlier how Loki was complaining about his name, not with words, but with body language and how he chooses to identify himself. Loki of Asguard, not Loki Odinson (there are some exceptions like his death scene) or Loki Laufeyson.

We are also getting lots of line drops with Loki God of Mischief. Well there are other famous titles for Loki in the comics such as the Prince / God of Lies.

But in the 2010s many comics reinvented Loki as God of Stories, and also later as God of Nothing (God of Untold Stories, where he can warp his backstory.) Note this 2010s Loki is not the same as 1960s and earlier Loki for he has died and reborn several times and thus sometimes you see this Loki regarded as Ikol.

I did not think of this till mid-writting up of this post but I am now convinced God of Stories is going to occur since they are namedropping God of Mischief so often.

[The Glyphstone]

I am earnestly asking but do not expect an Answer the curiosity got the better of me.

Spoiler: Oldest Time Police

Show

I am curious from a sociological standpoint when is the earliest Time Police story takes place in?

Most of the Time Machine Stuff happen after HG Wells' The Time Machine (1895), likewise Police are much older than that, but how we visualize Police and their control of space is a phenomena that is tied to the rise of the Automobile. We saw the style of Police change, but also the number of Police employed by the economy as a percent of the population increase when Cars became more popular, and people could travel large distance very quickly.

I am curious for this trope would be something within "Living Society Memory" but also older than most people's lives. It would be new for our Grandparents or Parents, but familiar for us and I find that type of liminality to be interesting. New but not-new. It was always like this vs no I remember a time when it was different.

-----

Something something Jean Baudrillard with how he had an idea our ability to create images and thus also photograms / lenses to view the pictures we create, have created an abundance of Simulcra experiences, something where we feel like we are in a simulation for so much of our lives are now projected with numbers and myths, and people like the Police increase the perception for they are now monitoring all aspect of our community, and now we have Time Police who monitor all of time, past, present, and future. I am thing of this Baudrillard quote.



The most real thing is "Hyperreality" per Baudrillard and Umberto Eco. Hyperreality is not the real of the concrete world but the mental real, and how we create images inside of our mind and how culture also does this creating images inside of our mind by providing the various traces which we then build off of as foundations. And what is the foundation is lost to us. Baudrillard called Hyperreality "A real without origin or reality" Eco called it "The authentic fake."

Disneyland is often compared to Hyperreality for it is all manufactured places, fairy tales give physical form and so on. Specifically this sign at Disneyland.



So I am curious about what is the Origin of Time Cops even though there are dozens upon dozens of them now, for it is an origin point we can probably pin down. It happened in living memory, even if it is beyond my individual memory. And if no one knows that too is okay I am just curious

And Loki as the Mercury Like Trickster Fellow plays with this themes I said about Hyperreality, it would never work his schemes and misdirections with "ILLUSIONS" if the illusions are so close to reality that we could not tell what is real and what is the authentic fake that Loki is hiding behind as a mask. For that is what Loki does, he wears masks to avoid feelings of vulnerability. Likewise he took so much delight with the projector for he feels that projector showed him the real feelings his adopted mother, father, and brother had for him when they did not know they were being recorded. That was not fake to Loki, that was more real than any experience he actually experienced via the senses to Loki for those people did not know the TVA or whatever techno-magic was keeping a record of that reality. The invisible man can see us even when we lie.

Spoiler: Names, One Last Thing

Show

I mentioned earlier how Loki was complaining about his name, not with words, but with body language and how he chooses to identify himself. Loki of Asguard, not Loki Odinson (there are some exceptions like his death scene) or Loki Laufeyson.

We are also getting lots of line drops with Loki God of Mischief. Well there are other famous titles for Loki in the comics such as the Prince / God of Lies.

But in the 2010s many comics reinvented Loki as God of Stories, and also later as God of Nothing (God of Untold Stories, where he can warp his backstory.) Note this 2010s Loki is not the same as 1960s and earlier Loki for he has died and reborn several times and thus sometimes you see this Loki regarded as Ikol.

I did not think of this till mid-writting up of this post but I am now convinced God of Stories is going to occur since they are namedropping God of Mischief so often.

Spoiler: Oldest Time Police

Show

First off, you owe me approximately 30 minutes for forcing me to consult with TvTropes after all.

But based on what's listed there, the first formal example of a group of time-traveling people formed under the explicit stated intent of protecting/preserving the timeline is Robert Anderson's Time Patrol series, first published in 1955. Isaac Asimov published The End of Eternity in the same year, but his Eternals are specifically meddlers in time looking to produce a favorable outcome, the opposite of the normal Time Police mission.

[Ramza00]

Spoiler: Oldest Time Police

Show

First off, you owe me approximately 30 minutes for forcing me to consult with TvTropes after all.

But based on what's listed there, the first formal example of a group of time-traveling people formed under the explicit stated intent of protecting/preserving the timeline is Robert Anderson's Time Patrol series, first published in 1955. Isaac Asimov published The End of Eternity in the same year, but his Eternals are specifically meddlers in time looking to produce a favorable outcome, the opposite of the normal Time Police mission.

Thank you for your sacrifice, hopefully someday I will repay it with some form of kindness *salute*

[Millstone85]

Again, there were no "alternate universes." He puts a stone back at roughly the moment it was taken, the branch disappears, one timeline. Professor Hulk and Cap even literally say this in Endgame before Steve leaves: "trim all the branches."

Ah, my bad. It does appear that the Avengers' intention was to prevent branches altogether, not just to stop them from becoming hellish places.

However, this replaces what I thought was a decent explanation with what I now realize was a ridiculous amount of hand-waving.

As for how he did all the things on your list, it was the Ancient One's idea (or more specifically, hers and Professor Hulk's). Going back to her first to get aid solves everything.She might even have gone with him. It's literally not important enough to dwell on just by applying a modicum of thought.

So the Ancient One will magic away the issue of Thanos and his army having vanished at the end of the first Guardians of the Galaxy, never to return? Because that seems pretty darn important to me.

[Eldan]

Regarding oldest time Police...

I was actually somewhat reminded of Philip K. Bad-word-for-forum-filter's Adjustment Team from 1954 (or the movie The Adjustment Bureau, though that wasn't about time travel.

Spoiler: undefined

Show

This one is about an unnamed agency who do live outside of time and control much of the world to ensure the Proper Order of Things, though.

The story follows a man who slips out of the proper order of things and enters a "de-energized sector", a grey, empty version of the world where everything is frozen, except for figures in white who go around making "Adjustments".

He's brought up the chain and they explain to him that they have to make sure everything on Earth happens the Right Way, so they periodically shut down large areas of the world, so they can go in and repair deviations. Usually, they make sure no one enters or leaves a de-energized sector, but there's been a mistake and instead of leaving for work early, he left a few minutes late. They wanted to send him a Friend with a Car (all caps) who would pick him up, but there was a clerical mistake and he was instead sent a door-to-door salesman who delayed him.

They are a bit more subtle than the TVA, though. Also, the movie implies they are angels even more than the book.

Edit: Valérian is a French Comic about time cops that has been running since 1967.

But the Trope isn't rare. There's Star Trek, All you Zombies, Discworld, the Celestial Intervention Agency and the Time Agency in Doctor Who, the Continuum RPG, the Ordo Chronos in Warhammer 40k...

[Psyren]

Ah, my bad. It does appear that the Avengers' intention was to prevent branches altogether, not just to stop them from becoming hellish places.

Correct.

So the Ancient One will magic away the issue of Thanos and his army having vanished at the end of the first Guardians of the Galaxy, never to return? Because that seems pretty darn important to me.

For the specific task of returning the stones, no, it's not important at all. The only stone that Thanos' army interacted with prior to Infinity War was the Power Stone, and Steve's job was to return it to Morag.

As for Thanos' army, I'm pretty sure he only took one ship through Evil!Nebula's portal to Endgame. It was a BIG ship with a LOT of troops in it (shrunk down), but it was still just one. Saying his entire army vanished from 2014 is a bit of an overstatement.

[DigoDragon]

A little slow for the pilot, but not bad premise. Hopefully they got all the setup out of the way and can jump right in going forward.

Wife laughed when I commented "Oh, Twilight Sparkle is a time cop now!" Yeah, I was being silly.

So…

Spoiler: Prediction

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I’m guessing by the end of this season the TVA gets nuked to Oblivion by their own timeline-resetters, thus wiping them out of existence and bringing back the multiverse?

A reasonable theory!

Spoiler: My theory

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My theory was the big bad will nuke reality completely, because non-existance is better than the illusion of choice/free will

[Psyren]

I mean, it's a safe bet that something big will happen given that

Spoiler

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there's going to be a multiverse of SOME kind in Doctor Strange 2

which does not bode well for the TVA's mission statement.

[Millstone85]

For the specific task of returning the stones, no, it's not important at all. The only stone that Thanos' army interacted with prior to Infinity War was the Power Stone, and Steve's job was to return it to Morag.

But it is important for his larger task to "trim all the branches".

So, after a trip through time, the Power Stone is back on 2014 Morag. That's good. Let's assume that Peter wakes up from his Rhodey-induced coma, wonders what happened, then proceeds to take the Power Stone. He even has his "Star-Lord! / Who?" exchange with Ronan's goons, exactly like in GotG.

Then he flies to Xandar and meets Gamora.

Oh wait, Steve did not bring back a Gamora, did he? Can the Ancient One make a Gamora for Peter to meet? Clearly, GotG isn't as we remember it.

As for IW, it is not going to happen at all, because no Thanos.

[Clertar]

Oh wait, Steve did not bring back a Gamora, did he? Can the Ancient One make a Gamora for Peter to meet? Clearly, GotG isn't as we remember it.

As for IW, it is not going to happen at all, because no Thanos.

That sounds like the type of things that the TVA does. When they talk about "resetting" Loki they (most likely) mean erasing the variant version, and re-incorporating a new Loki in the timeline. So when Steve has returned the Power Stone, Peter Quill finds it, etc. then the TVA resets Thanos and co. so that the timeline can proceed as it should.

It's not unlikely that this will not only be lampshaded in Loki, but actually addressed as part of the plot. In any case, I will wait to see more than 16% of the series before establishing that this is actually a gaping issue

[Psyren]

Oh wait, Steve did not bring back a Gamora, did he? Can the Ancient One make a Gamora for Peter to meet? Clearly, GotG isn't as we remember it.

As for IW, it is not going to happen at all, because no Thanos.

That's not a branch caused by Steve returning the stones though, that's a branch caused by Thanos leaving - one which the TVA presumably pruned. The courtroom scene didn't say anything about Thanos, only the Avengers.

That sounds like the type of things that the TVA does. When they talk about "resetting" Loki they (most likely) mean erasing the variant version, and re-incorporating a new Loki in the timeline. So when Steve has returned the Power Stone, Peter Quill finds it, etc. then the TVA resets Thanos and co. so that the timeline can proceed as it should.

This.

[Ramza00]

Spoiler: Oldest Time Police

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First off, you owe me approximately 30 minutes for forcing me to consult with TvTropes after all.

But based on what's listed there, the first formal example of a group of time-traveling people formed under the explicit stated intent of protecting/preserving the timeline is Robert Anderson's Time Patrol series, first published in 1955. Isaac Asimov published The End of Eternity in the same year, but his Eternals are specifically meddlers in time looking to produce a favorable outcome, the opposite of the normal Time Police mission.

Cool here is one more a friend just pointed out to me, I figured I would add to to the pile.

Spoiler: Time Cop

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Alfred Bester who won the first Hugo Award ever, is a sci-fi great, and is also an author of some Superman and Green Lantern 1940s stories including the penning a variant of the GL oath "In brightest day, In blackest night" (version.)

Well in 1951 he did a short story "Of Time and Third Avenue" from what I can intuit of the plot (I will read it tonight) there is a Back to the Future II situation with an almanac of the future that somehow got sent back to the past and a time cop shows up. The Back to the Future Situation is the protagonist of the story bought a '50 almanac but instead of being 1950 it was 2050 and the Time Cop is trying to talk him into voluntarily giving it to him. For the good of the present and future.

[Solamnicknight]

Is anyone else thinking the TVA is doomed? Given the title of the upcoming Dr Strange film. My guess is that the alternate Loki that’s causing trouble will team up with the Avengers Loki due to having sympathetic motives. They tag team destroying the TVA together but perhaps Avengers Loki spares Agent Mobius?

[TeChameleon]

Wellp, watched it, liked it well enough, and while Owen Wilson still felt like kind of an odd choice, he played well enough off Tom Hiddleston that I didn't mind it that much.

... although the character he played, Mobius M. Mobius was basically an obstructive meddling bureaucrat in the comics, so the change in type was kind of weird, but no real worries I guess. Would've been cool if Wunmi Mosaku's character had been Justicer Peace (the very first TVA operative to appear in comics) instead of the frustratingly generic 'Hunter B-15', but I guess that's not the direction they chose to go.

I sort of half-wish they'd kept the TVA operatives' goofy helmets from the comics, but I guess you can't have everything Interesting aside- I didn't realize it, but the TVA had their origins in Walt Simonson's epic (in the traditional, literal sense of the word) run on Thor comics in the 80s, although they were greatly fleshed out in the Fantastic Four in the 90s.

As another aside, jumping back a few pages, I didn't mind Goldblum's take on the Grandmaster, but the character always felt a little goofy to me in the comics, even when they tried to make him more serious by using his 'real' name of En Dwi Gast; he was a gambling junkie with a god complex who took himself far too seriously, so Jeff Goldblum's take on him didn't feel particularly out of place.

Spoiler

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I'm not sure the TVA is quite as omnipotent as they make themselves out to be; if they're keeping to the source material to any degree, the Infinity Stones not working there was entirely unsurprising and absolutely nothing to do with them. In the comics, Infinity Gems only work in their native universe, which the TVA emphatically was not. Guessing that there is a set that works in the TVA, but it's kept somewhere very secure and even more secret.

Also, I don't know if the TVA will stick around or not; my guess is that what they're actually doing is keeping the various universes sufficiently separated that the old tech that was used in the multiversal war doesn't work, because there's no freaking way that what they're doing would prevent a multiverse. I'm thinking Loki might have the right of it that the whole 'sacred timeline' thing smells suspiciously of bull****.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Is anyone else thinking the TVA is doomed?

Absolutely; wiping out an organization that didn’t exist until this series falls neatly into the ‘TV shows are not required viewing’ bucket they’ve been using for all their shows so far, and ‘restoring free will to the multiverse and preventing future erasures by the uncaring bureaucracy’ would be enough of a Good Thing to balance out the inevitable backstabbing that will occur, even if Loki’s doing it for purely selfish reasons.

[Millstone85]

Is anyone else thinking the TVA is doomed? Given the title of the upcoming Dr Strange film.

There is an amusing theory floating around.

In a true timey-wimey Jeremy-Bearimy fashion, the upcoming Multiverse of Madness and the ancient multiversal war would be one and the same. What's more, the Time Keepers would turn out to be variants of Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch and Loki.

[Rodin]

Absolutely; wiping out an organization that didn’t exist until this series falls neatly into the ‘TV shows are not required viewing’ bucket they’ve been using for all their shows so far, and ‘restoring free will to the multiverse and preventing future erasures by the uncaring bureaucracy’ would be enough of a Good Thing to balance out the inevitable backstabbing that will occur, even if Loki’s doing it for purely selfish reasons.

I would dispute Wandavision not being required viewing.

Spoiler: WandaVision

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An upcoming movie is "The Marvels", which means we're 100% going to be seeing Monica Rambeau in that movie. If you skip the TV show that means Monica Rambeau goes from ordinary little girl to superhero with mysterious powers with no explanation whatsoever. Wanda also left that show in a drastically different position then she did in Endgame. Endgame had her back as an Avenger. WandaVision shatters that link and has her off on her own learning dark magics.

And that's without getting into whether Cataract is going to make a reappearance outside of the TV universe.

Falcon and Winter Soldier is much easier to ignore. Sam left Endgame not sure if he wanted to be Captain America, and by the end of his show he did. That doesn't require explanation other than "he changed his mind", and it's about the only universe-impacting change that happened. The new characters are easy to leave in TV land.

I'm not making any bets on how Loki is going to play out. WandaVision was effectively an MCU movie in its own right, and a fairly important one at that. Given the emphasis on the multiverse going forward, I'm leaning more towards Loki continuing to setup for Dr. Strange 2.