Loki (2021)

[Anteros]

This might have been mentioned already, but in the Citadel...

Spoiler: Citadel detail

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As the two Loki's go through the place, there's a room with the three time keepers as statues on pedestals. But wasn't there a fourth pedestal that looked like it had a statue knocked off it?

Maybe I'm seeing it wrong cause the scene is dark, but just thinking out loud.

Spoiler: TVA

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I had an odd thought about that-- what if there's more than one TVA existing at the same time? I had this thought because I was thinking back to the various moments where Mobius had trouble remembering details in the TVA, such as leaving the water stains on Renslayer's table, or that he didn't remember ever pruning a Gator Loki.

Originally I thought that maybe there's more than one Mobius, but then I thought why not more than one TVA? Perhaps there's two and they exist in different "pockets" so that normally they don't see one another, but maybe on a rare occasion agents somehow get their tempad jumps crossed and end up in the other TVA.

We see the statue of Kang in the TVA Loki ends up in at the end, but wasn't Loki teleported there before Sylvie kills "their" Kang? If multiple Kang's exist, perhaps more than one had the idea to create a TVA.

Could just be an idea too silly though and the TBA change happened retroactively while Loki was teleported. I acknowledge it's rather out there. ^^;

True, true... tis not a perfect idea.

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The idea of anything happening "before" anything else in a show that leans to heavily on time travel and is so willing to allow plot holes is going to be questionable. From Loki's viewpoint he was there before the change, but for all we know it actually happened thousands of years ago in that timeline. If you're a time travelling deity that wants to take control of another timeline you'd be more likely to do so from the start after all.

[Delicious Taffy]

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The idea of anything happening "before" anything else in a show that leans to heavily on time travel and is so willing to allow plot holes is going to be questionable. From Loki's viewpoint he was there before the change, but for all we know it actually happened thousands of years ago in that timeline. If you're a time travelling deity that wants to take control of another timeline you'd be more likely to do so from the start after all.

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That's the trouble with stopping an evil time traveler's horrid scheme. It has "will have going to have happened" happened, but it hasn't "actually happened" happened, actually.

[KillianHawkeye]

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That's the trouble with stopping an evil time traveler's horrid scheme. It has "will have going to have happened" happened, but it hasn't "actually happened" happened, actually.

The hardest part of a time travel story is getting your tenses right.

[Mechalich]

Time travel is always a mess, and basically you have to check your disbelief at the door when going into such a show. I mean, the TVA are supposed to be this incredibly powerful organization, but their in-the-field capabilities are actually remarkably meager - they don't even carry ranged weapons, never mind any sort of incredible futuristic technologies like force fields or nanoswarms. Instead the TVA seems to operate in a weird frozen-in-the-1950s setup that seems oddly common among super-secret extra dimensional cosmic monitoring agencies. That's an interesting aesthetic choice but, I mean, it's pretty obviously ridiculous. Paper files? Really? Even today's government agencies have managed to mostly digitize.

[The Glyphstone]

You could headcanon that this is deliberate on Kang's part, keeping his agents at the minimum tech necessary to perform their function?

[Anteros]

"Here's your helmet, your pointy stick, and your bomb that destroys entire timelines"

[Ramza00]

Time travel is always a mess, and basically you have to check your disbelief at the door when going into such a show. I mean, the TVA are supposed to be this incredibly powerful organization, but their in-the-field capabilities are actually remarkably meager - they don't even carry ranged weapons, never mind any sort of incredible futuristic technologies like force fields or nanoswarms. Instead the TVA seems to operate in a weird frozen-in-the-1950s setup that seems oddly common among super-secret extra dimensional cosmic monitoring agencies. That's an interesting aesthetic choice but, I mean, it's pretty obviously ridiculous. Paper files? Really? Even today's government agencies have managed to mostly digitize.

It has to do with culture and how simultaneously several stories originated in the 1950s.

There were cops prior to the 1950s but with the rise of the automobile we see an expansion of policing in a cultural generation of lived experience from 1920 to 1950s. Lots more cops, cops gain more powers, and the job of a cop grew with a larger jurisdiction.

Likewise Atom Bomb and Hydrogen Bomb created metaphors we can control reality and also destroy it.

Likewise we see an explosion of time travel stories after HG Wells The Chronic Argonauts, and then 7 years later Wells The Time Machine. We see even more time travel stories after The Great War and World War II. There is also more cultural influences besides these 3 things on the next development.

Thus we see the in the 1950s the introduction of “Time Cops as a Genre”. I am away from the list right now but 6 weeks ago me and some friends tried to track down some of the first time cops stories, and I mentioned some of them we found earlier in this 20 plus page thread.

Is it surprising that time travel bureaucracies mirror the creation of the genre, especially since many types of bureaucracies also have imagery crafted around the 1950s for various reasons even though bureaucracies are far older some of them being thousands of years old as a concept.

[Zalabim]

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The idea of anything happening "before" anything else in a show that leans to heavily on time travel and is so willing to allow plot holes is going to be questionable. From Loki's viewpoint he was there before the change, but for all we know it actually happened thousands of years ago in that timeline. If you're a time travelling deity that wants to take control of another timeline you'd be more likely to do so from the start after all.

What are you literally talking about? What time travel? What plot holes? The show is unclear about how time passes in the TVA relative to the timeline, but it is clear that everything that happens later happens after everything that happened earlier. There is hardly anything like time travel in the show, and all the time tricks that are used (slowing, looping, teleporting) are ones that have been established and used in other Marvel movies in the same way. The TVA cannot go back in time to change an event that has already happened. No one suggests going back to when Sylvie was first captured and pruning her properly, ya know? Because they can't? They can't change history. They can only predict the future up to what has already been determined by the Time Keepers, and that is only because "the future" has already happened somewhere on the "sacred" timeline. Like the line: Over and over again forever.

Imagine a race track. Different racers started on the track at different times, but driving identical cars. So car 1 may be at lap 250 while car 2 is at lap 245, but both cars are next to each other on the track right now. The TVA is in the middle of the track, able to talk to any of the drivers. So the TVA can show car 2 "their future" by showing them what happened to car 1 in laps 246-250. But that future isn't set in stone. Variations happen. The TVA can always see the whole racetrack, but they can only take cars off the track. They can't make drivers go backwards or un-crash cars that wreck. They cannot undo what has been done. They can only intervene afterwards.

Time travel is a background element to the show. It's part of the setting. It's a fact of the locations they visit. Time is the landscape they travel on. It isn't a tool that they use. Even less than in Endgame, or Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. They aren't gathering things, people, information from other times. They aren't using time travel to solve a mystery, or prevent a murder, or set up a heist, or finish a history report. It feels like the story is more about the alternative timelines, than about the time differences between them.

[Clertar]

He Who Remains gave the Loki fannickbase a lesson on how to take unexpected things in stride

Viewers: What I expected to happen isn't happening, I hate this!
HWR: What I expected to happen isn't happening, I love this!

My favourite aspect of the Loki nickbase is probably the simultaneous complaining about Loki not exhibiting typical Asgardian traits (comparing him to Thor and to Sif) and him not exhibiting typical Frost Giant traits.

[DigoDragon]

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Yep, there was a statue that had been thrown down and broken. I had thought there were only two standing plus the one fallen, which may have represented the robot Timekeeper that Sylvie "killed."

But it was all so Scooby-Doo that I couldn't really take those scenes seriously. I know others have commented about the setting, but I found it very generic and unimaginative. All of time and space to draw on, and we have a castle that just happens to look sinister according to late 20th/early 21st-century eyes?

For me, the visual high point of the series was that first majestic pan of the TVA headquarters, which reminded me of a John Berkey painting. It was classic sci-fi design, and worked perfectly with the 70s aesthetic inside the TVA.

By contrast, the castle thing was just...dull, and even trite, despite the little silvery veins here and there. I would have wanted much, much more from a citadel outside of time. The only consistency is that the castle was as unimpressive as its occupant.

Spoiler: Citadel

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Yeah, I can see the argument that the Citadel feels unimpressive; the spooky castle look is a bit old hat as far as final boss lairs go. It would have been nice to see a little anachronism or some interesting future tech holding it together or some amalgamation of architecture that's from really different periods.

Or heck, just make it a really slick future looking base fallen into ruin with the silver veins.


I'll disagree about the occupant being unimpressive tho. I rather liked the quirky "Dr. Kang". Probably talked on a bit longer than I wanted, but I liked how animated he was. Usually the big bad at the top is all seriousness business with little emotional energy, so to me I found the performance refreshing.

"Here's your helmet, your pointy stick, and your bomb that destroys entire timelines"

How many field agents used their stick as a back scratcher I wonder?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Mechalich
Instead the TVA seems to operate in a weird frozen-in-the-1950s setup that seems oddly common among super-secret extra dimensional cosmic monitoring agencies.

Other examples?

Originally Posted by The Glyphstone
You could headcanon that this is deliberate on Kang's part, keeping his agents at the minimum tech necessary to perform their function?

This was my first thought as well.

Originally Posted by Clertar
*nickbase*

What is a…nickbase? Never seen this term before.

Originally Posted by DigoDragon

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I'll disagree about the occupant being unimpressive tho. I rather liked the quirky "Dr. Kang". Probably talked on a bit longer than I wanted, but I liked how animated he was. Usually the big bad at the top is all seriousness business with little emotional energy, so to me I found the performance refreshing.

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Matter of taste. The acting was certainly well-done, in terms of what they were aiming for.

But I don’t like goofy villains in an otherwise serious storyline, and I found Kang to be especially irritating. He felt like a boss villain run by a DM in junior high, who’s having way too much fun with his omnipotent bad guy who can mess with the PCs just for his own entertainment.

Unfortunately, it looks like Loki will still be dealing with Kang and the TVA in Season Two, if not multiple Kangs and multiple TVAs, so I'm much less motivated for that. But watching Loki and Sylvie will still be worthwhile, even if I wish they had a better grade of villain.

[Joran]

Other examples?

Other examples of mid-century celestial bureaucracies that I can think of off the top of my head:

The Adjustment Bureau (the requisite fedora actually unlocks the realm)

The Good Place: the architects' design room

Edit:
John Wick Assassins Bureaucracy has similar mid-century vibe; people using telephone switch boards, typewriters, pneumatic tubes.

[Psyren]

The Magicians has two - the Underworld and the Library - both of which have a pretty retro aesthetic.

Spoiler

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I'll disagree about the occupant being unimpressive tho. I rather liked the quirky "Dr. Kang". Probably talked on a bit longer than I wanted, but I liked how animated he was. Usually the big bad at the top is all seriousness business with little emotional energy, so to me I found the performance refreshing.

Agreed - this had a lot of potential to end up as simultaneously boring, inscrutably convoluted, and overall bad as meeting The Architect was, resulting in endless mockery. Instead, he was the highlight of the episode, if not the series.

How many field agents used their stick as a back scratcher I wonder?

Since you have to activate it, and said activation state is pretty clear, I'm guessing it wouldn't be that big a deal

[Ramza00]

Agreed - this had a lot of potential to end up as simultaneously boring, inscrutably convoluted, and overall bad as meeting The Architect was, resulting in endless mockery. Instead, he was the highlight of the episode, if not the series.

The whole point of that matrix scene was to be off-putting, to remind people of their cosmic insignificance in a world of signs. The best way to do that is to create a love craftian horror, or to have a rude dad elderly figure who does not love you and is indifferent to your struggles. Either works for it indicates the inability to communicate and dialogue in a productive manner.

It made sense to do the old man oedipus figure, who speaks like a rude professor for they already did the lovecraftian horror with the machines such as sentinels and the doc bot. Likewise the two directors, the Wachowskis, were obsessed with philosophy, hell they asked Jean Baudrillard to contribute / help write the script for movies 2 and 3 (he said no, he hated movie 1.)

The Architect is meant to be off-putting. And some people do not like said experience, for he made people who were hyper invested in the story feel small (this was once again by design.) Mockery is one way to not feel small, especially with things that are “coded” as authority figures. When one mocks the Kentucky Fried Chicken Man, one is mocking the Freudian Father and all the constraining super-ego rules he places on you saying this is reality, rebelling via mockery is not accepting 100% the constraints of another. I bring up Freud for Kentucky Fried Chicken Man is aesthetically casted and primed to look like pictures of this man, this famous intellectual and his ineligible theory about individuals and society. And if you go down the white rabbit hole far enough, you realize it is like the two trans directors and writers were by casting a Freud stand in mocking Freud for they knew such character is likely to get future mockery, the two directors were likely in on the joke and the manufactured a scene to create this response.

Some people watched the matrix for the action scenes, others liked it for its punk aesthetics, lots of people did not like it for it had way too much philosophy, and others liked and did not like a myriad of other things.

[Psyren]

For the record, I agree that such a character should be ineffable. But the point is that the Matrix version didn't quite land with most people (hence the rampant parodies.) Eric Martin, one of the showrunners, explicitly stated that avoiding the Architect was one of their goals going into that scene. The show's codename was even "Architect" during filming to help them keep that misstep in mind all the way through.

“The obvious concern was that this would all just become the Architect conversation in Matrix Reloaded. As such, our project took the code name: A warning not to repeat what was done before us.”

[Anyr]

The architect's technobabble is deliberately obtuse. He's trying to confuse Neo with jargon. He even gets called out for this in the scene:

Neo: You haven't answered my question.

Architect: Quite right. Interesting. That was quicker than the others.

He's an arrogant, pretentious liar. The audience is meant to reject him, just as Neo does.

[Ramza00]

For the record, I agree that such a character should be ineffable. But the point is that the Matrix version didn't quite land with most people (hence the rampant parodies.) Eric Martin, one of the showrunners, explicitly stated that avoiding the Architect was one of their goals going into that scene. The show's codename was even "Architect" during filming to help them keep that misstep in mind all the way through.

Yes I understand but my point is the Wachowskis choose result A for they wanted response A, it was done on purpose. Eric Martin wanted response not-A, also on purpose for different reasons.

It is two questions,

Q1) whether art should always be pleasurable or should it sometimes be negative on purpose for pain, discomfort, frustration can cause various things such as new insight, growth, … and a buttload of other reasons why you sometimes make art not pleasurable. By contrast the MCU is in a different market entirely where they make money by being consistent movies people would rate as positive even if they are not grand or glorious. They are fine selling movies people rate B or B+, just as long as you keep coming.
Q2) the order of operations matter, for how familiar one is with film language changes the experience. Thus the question is how can I make this new scene fresh and positive when a person has seen similar monologue scenes before. The matrix reloaded sold 47 million North American tickets twenty years ago and more people have seen it by now due to dvd, streaming, cable reruns etc. Thus they are half familiar like Deja Vu and it is good the artists are mindful with what comes before for keep on repeating the same experiences and you will not get the desired result. Keep some but change others is how things remain fresh.

My point here is two things may be similar but have various different intents by human agents, but also different context entirely (which is separate from intent in the moment.)

[Psyren]

I don't think art being thought-provoking and commercially-successful are mutually exclusive. I also think that, whether or not the creators cared about sacrificing commercial appeal for their artistic vision, ultimately their execution of that vision can still be criticized.

More specifically, I can see what they were going for with the Architect, and agree directionally, but still believe that they could have kept that air of mystery and alien nature without making that scene quite as impenetrable as it was. But yes, I can also agree that Loki was standing to an extent on the shoulders of giants here.

[Clertar]

What is a…nickbase? Never seen this term before.

Just a portmanteau of "nitpick" and "fanbase". No need for it to persist beyond this couple of posts

[Delicious Taffy]

Just a portmanteau of "nitpick" and "fanbase". No need for it to persist beyond this couple of posts

That's like calling a guitar a "strent" because it's a string instrument.

[Clertar]

That's like calling a guitar a "strent" because it's a string instrument.

Indeed! Portmanteau is a very productive strategy for the formation of neologisms.

[Eldan]

Other examples of mid-century celestial bureaucracies that I can think of off the top of my head:

The Adjustment Bureau (the requisite fedora actually unlocks the realm)

The Good Place: the architects' design room

Edit:
John Wick Assassins Bureaucracy has similar mid-century vibe; people using telephone switch boards, typewriters, pneumatic tubes.

The Federal Bureau of Control, in the videogame Control. Quite intentional, they are sitting on a dimensional wibbly-wobbly and it turns out that modern technology gets dangerous. Also anything that's iconic-looking in the modern consciousness. Also, the pneumatic tube system is probably alive.

[Sholos]

Also the agency in Umbrella Academy.

[Wookieetank]

Also the agency in Umbrella Academy.

Which also has a tube system with concerning abilities.

[Tyndmyr]

Time travel is always a mess, and basically you have to check your disbelief at the door when going into such a show. I mean, the TVA are supposed to be this incredibly powerful organization, but their in-the-field capabilities are actually remarkably meager - they don't even carry ranged weapons, never mind any sort of incredible futuristic technologies like force fields or nanoswarms. Instead the TVA seems to operate in a weird frozen-in-the-1950s setup that seems oddly common among super-secret extra dimensional cosmic monitoring agencies. That's an interesting aesthetic choice but, I mean, it's pretty obviously ridiculous. Paper files? Really? Even today's government agencies have managed to mostly digitize.

Being able to door in anywhere helps with the ranged thing. It's a disadvantage, sure, but they seem to be teleporting in right next to their target, who usually doesn't know they're coming. That's a pretty unfair fight.

I could probably justify the paper filing system as a compatibility thing. Paper pretty much always works, and is comprehensible by a ton of people. A software program is probably outdated in five or ten years. If you're recruiting from all over the timeline, using something broadly familiar is probably easier.

Sure, are these decisions more about aesthetics than practicality? Probably. But these things don't appear to be a great disadvantage, though I admit that Sylvie escaping by simply stomping on a single foot does seem...convenient, and sort of makes the TVA appear weak.

Other examples of mid-century celestial bureaucracies that I can think of off the top of my head:

The Adjustment Bureau (the requisite fedora actually unlocks the realm)

The Good Place: the architects' design room

Edit:
John Wick Assassins Bureaucracy has similar mid-century vibe; people using telephone switch boards, typewriters, pneumatic tubes.

As noted earlier, the Umbrella Academy's Temps Commission has a similar feel.

Ultimately, they play by different time travel rules, though.

The architect's technobabble is deliberately obtuse. He's trying to confuse Neo with jargon. He even gets called out for this in the scene:

Neo: You haven't answered my question.

Architect: Quite right. Interesting. That was quicker than the others.

He's an arrogant, pretentious liar. The audience is meant to reject him, just as Neo does.

There is perhaps a difference between an audience hating the character, and the audience hating the experience of watching the characters. There are some villains that are truly a joy to hate. The Architect is not among them. Partially that's demeanor, partially that's his role. He's largely an exposition dump, and if a good deal of that exposition isn't even reliable, then...he's nearly a non-entity. Forgettable.

[hungrycrow]

Being able to door in anywhere helps with the ranged thing. It's a disadvantage, sure, but they seem to be teleporting in right next to their target, who usually doesn't know they're coming. That's a pretty unfair fight.

Would surprise be enough to take down a variant Thanos?

[Dragonus45]

But these things don't appear to be a great disadvantage, though I admit that Sylvie escaping by simply stomping on a single foot does seem...convenient, and sort of makes the TVA appear weak.

The feeling I most strongly got from them was complacency.

Would surprise be enough to take down a variant Thanos?

When all you need for an instant kill is to make even the briefest contact with your murder baton I'm gonna say yes.

[hungrycrow]

When all you need for an instant kill is to make even the briefest contact with your murder baton I'm gonna say yes.

See I don't know about that. NYLoki got captured because he just stood there bloviating at them when they appeared, and later is able to fight off several of them even with their instant murder batons. There are plenty of marvel characters that are disciplined enough to not stand there gawking when a bunch of TVA goons come out of a portal, and who are much better fighters than Loki.

[Psyren]

See I don't know about that. NYLoki got captured because he just stood there bloviating at them when they appeared, and later is able to fight off several of them even with their instant murder batons. There are plenty of marvel characters that are disciplined enough to not stand there gawking when a bunch of TVA goons come out of a portal, and who are much better fighters than Loki.

The key word in your comparison is "later." I'd wager that 99% of variants only encounter TVAgents once, get captured and sentenced, and that's it. NYLoki was a special case only because he was pulled out of the system by Mobius before his sentence could be carried out. Even among the few who managed to get their hands on a tempad, Sylvie may have been the only one who found out (by accident or through HWR's machinations) that apocalypses can be used to hide from their sensors.

[The Glyphstone]

The presence of the Thanos Copter in the Void does give strong circumstantial support to the idea that at least one variant Thanos has been beaten by the TVA...