Loki (2021)

[The Glyphstone]

I really wanted more after this episode (in a good way). Really enjoyed it. :3

Spoiler: Cake

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I think that's one of the underlying messages for the audience to have by the end of this-- don't get wrapped up in the canon and the idea there is only one timeline, because it can otherwise stifle some really good story ideas.

I've read a lot of comics and those sure do a lot of rewriting history and canon. Still love the stories despite that, though. :3


Also, with this show messing around with it's own internal logic of how the TVA operates timeline pruning and adjustments, it could be just an unreliable narrator thing as it seems even the TVA was lied to as how their job works; the time keepers weren't real, pruning didn't disintegrate the victim, the agents are all varients, etc.

Spoiler: Mobius

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Don't forget that there were about half a dozen agents that saw Mobius pruned. Him coming back like nothing is going to raise a lot of questions and doubts about the TVA.

Spoiler: More Mobius

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It's possible our Mobius came onboard the TVA after that arrest. If agents are just brainwashed varients, there might have been previous Mobius agents before and considering how they can go through agents like tissue paper, they probably had to replace him at least once (I think back to the scene where Ravonna tells him to use a coaster for his drink and he doesn't remember making those water stains).

Spoiler: Mobius

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That could be very gtrippy. He sneaks back to his office only to find the next, freshly brainwashed Mobius already there to start working.

[Starbuck_II]

What is especially frustrating to me is that episode 1 baked that double cake in a satisfying way, only for the rest of the series to ignore this.

Long ago, there was a vast multiversal war. Countless unique timelines battled each other for supremacy, nearly resulting in the total destruction of, well, everything. But then the all knowing time keepers emerged, bringing peace by reorganising the multiverse into a single timeline, the sacred timeline.

So, why not simply introduce the Lokis as remnants of the pre-TVA multiverse? Plus that would really emphasize Loki as a survivor, if so many of hims made it through this multiversal collapse.

But nooo. Instead, we have the TVA seemingly managing multiple timelines, trying to keep them within some general script. I guess that still includes a timeline where Loki is an alligator, only he did not step out of line by "eating the wrong neighbor's cat".

The series thought it could be fun to have a surprise that the premise was false.
While it could be cool to keep ep 1 premise, really, they thought this was better.

Spoiler

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I was really hoping, we learned that Mobius was a Loki too.

Now, how many times did Mobius break the rules without punishment? Because the boss, has like a crush on him badly. And says he is his favorite.

[Psyren]

Yes. The same way MC Loki was temporarily allied with the organization that wanted him pruned for his temporal crimes. Were we watching the same series?

I just don't see how you can possibly come away from Ravonna interrogating B-15/getting taunted by her/leaving her locked up under armed guard and think "yep, allies!"

The series hasn't ended yet, so we don't know exactly how Ravonna's story thread is gonna conclude and how much whichever direction MCU chooses will make sense.

An agreeable statement, if utterly banal.

Like, it's possible the writers just want to have their cake and eat it too, playing with the idea of Multiverse and "The Sacred Timeline" simultaneously even if it doesn't make a ton of sense.

What doesn't make sense about it?

Spoiler: Mobius

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Don't forget that there were about half a dozen agents that saw Mobius pruned. Him coming back like nothing is going to raise a lot of questions and doubts about the TVA.

Indeed, another good point.

[Millstone85]

The series thought it could be fun to have a surprise that the premise was false.
While it could be cool to keep ep 1 premise, really, they thought this was better.

I gotta admit the reveal scene was great. When our Loki realized that Sylvie could not be the result of a simple nexus event, like himself, but that she was proof of a lasting alternate timeline. And of course Moebius gave us that classic Owen Wilson "Wow!".

Except it didn't happen. There was the reveal that every agent had a life before the TVA, yes, which was treated with proper gravitas. Then the Time Keepers were exposed as goofy animatronics. But the existence of such wildly different Lokis is no more questioned now than it was during Moebius' holographic presentation.

[BRC]

What doesn't make sense about it?

Spoiler

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We're given two different explanations for the timeline and the TVA.

In one, there is a single "Sacred" timeline, anytime something deviates, the TVA shows up to capture the variant and restore the timeline with a charge.

Under this explanation, Loki is ALWAYS Tom Hiddleston. If he does something new (Like, say, killing Thor as a child, or escaping Thanos to live out his days alone on a planet) the TVA shows up, captures him, and resets the timeline. Per Miss Minutes, a Variation could be as small as 'being late for work'.

Under this explanation, every Loki is some version of MCU Tom Hiddleston Loki, who at some point strayed from their script.

The second explanation is that there are multiple timelines, all with the same general events, but different details. Hammer Loki is NOT Tom Hiddleston. Independent of Not Being Tom Hiddleston, he also got the infinity stones and killed the Avengers (maybe, he might have been lying).
But he's from a timeline where Loki is Not Tom Hiddleston, so presumably it diverged from the "Sacred" Timeline before he was born. Hammer Loki, Alligator Loki, and Sylvie are all NOT "Tom Hiddleston who went off script". They're distinctly different versions of Loki, more akin to an Alternate Universe than a "Loki, but if he did X thing differently.

Both are fun concepts, but they're mutually incompatible. Either the TVA prunes any variants before the timeline can diverge, or there are multiple timelines that diverged long ago, and the TVA selectively prunes those branches when needed, rather than shutting them all down.

Unless, of course, the TVA is just straight up lying about there being a single "Sacred" timeline, and that they're actually pruning and guiding multiple timelines to ensure or avoid some outcome in any of them.


But the screens and such have always shown a single line, and it seems like the TVA could have made it's lie "We are pruning multiple timelines in accordance with the Time Keeper's Will" just as much as it could have talked about "The Sacred Timeline".

[GloatingSwine]

Spoiler

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The second explanation is that there are multiple timelines, all with the same general events, but different details. Hammer Loki is NOT Tom Hiddleston. Independent of Not Being Tom Hiddleston, he also got the infinity stones and killed the Avengers (maybe, he might have been lying).
But he's from a timeline where Loki is Not Tom Hiddleston, so presumably it diverged from the "Sacred" Timeline before he was born. Hammer Loki, Alligator Loki, and Sylvie are all NOT "Tom Hiddleston who went off script". They're distinctly different versions of Loki, more akin to an Alternate Universe than a "Loki, but if he did X thing differently.

Both are fun concepts, but they're mutually incompatible. Either the TVA prunes any variants before the timeline can diverge, or there are multiple timelines that diverged long ago, and the TVA selectively prunes those branches when needed, rather than shutting them all down.

Spoiler

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Yes, all the very obviously different Lokis are from universes where someone must have done something radically different at some point, and the TVA allowed it to proceed long enough for the resulting Lokis to become adults.

There's still room for a reveal that the whole sacred timeline thing was a sham all along and I dunno, the TVA only exists to manage Lokis really and the being behind the curtain is another Loki (if which: called it), but I don't think that'll be satisfying because the only person that materially affects at this point is Ravonna and who cares? She's not the person we're emotionally invested in.

[Anteros]

Well, as far as things like that go, Loki is capable of looking however he wants. There's nothing saying it's not just the same old Loki who woke up one day and decided he wanted a style change.

[BRC]

Well, as far as things like that go, Loki is capable of looking however he wants. There's nothing saying it's not just the same old Loki who woke up one day and decided he wanted a style change.

That's fair.

[Keltest]

So, first off, the TVA is not omnipotent or omniscient. They detect nexus events where things might spiral wildly out of control, but not every variation causes a nexus event, or is even a problem. Classic Loki went years before the TVA caught him, because he wasnt affecting the timeline at all.

Secondly, as the first episode shows, if the TVA just jumps into the middle of a dangerous situation, say where Loki is all-powerful from stealing the infinity stones, without taking appropriate cautions, theyre going to get rekt, and the variant will just carry on in some mild confusion after killing the agents.

[Psyren]

Anytime something deviates, the TVA shows up to capture the variant and restore the timeline with a charge.
...
Per Miss Minutes, a Variation could be as small as 'being late for work'.

Gonna stop you here because that's not quite what her propaganda video said. Her exact words were:

"Maybe you started an uprising, or were just late for work. Whatever it was, stepping off your path created a NEXUS EVENT - which, left unchecked, could branch off into madness, leading to another multiversal war. But don't worry! To make sure that doesn't happen, the Time-Keepers created the TVA and all its incredible workers. The TVA has stepped in to fix your mistake and set time back on its predetermined path."

First of all, we already know there's one blatant lie in that video (the Time Keepers didn't actually create any of the TVA's workers, and likely don't exist at all.) So you taking all the rest of the propaganda at face value is what doesn't make much sense.

But even if we assume everything else she said is 100% accurate, you're still making a leap here. It isn't "being late for work" that created the branch, it was the Nexus Event that being late caused that did that. The video is saying that small occurrences like being late for work CAN create nexus events - not that they always, 100% of the time, WILL do that. No Nexus Event, no intervention - trhat is consistent with what we see in the show as well.

So, first off, the TVA is not omnipotent or omniscient. They detect nexus events where things might spiral wildly out of control, but not every variation causes a nexus event, or is even a problem. Classic Loki went years before the TVA caught him, because he wasnt affecting the timeline at all.

Secondly, as the first episode shows, if the TVA just jumps into the middle of a dangerous situation, say where Loki is all-powerful from stealing the infinity stones, without taking appropriate cautions, theyre going to get rekt, and the variant will just carry on in some mild confusion after killing the agents.

^ Exactly, this.

I'll add though that "just jumping in" probably works 99% of the time, since they can intercept that variant and catch them unawares at basically any point in their branch when they least expect it. Sylvie is the only one who has escaped, and that because she had been caught and escaped before and thus knew they were out there, which is likely something none of the other variants ever managed to do before getting sentenced and pruned. (Assuming she is even truly a variant of Loki.)

[Rodin]

Is there one timeline though? Was it ever firmly established that there is exactly one timeline following the events of the MCU? Remember, there was a dotted line off the main timeline in the instructional video past which Nexus Events occurred.

From that my take is that there a whole bunch of "close enough" timelines that follow the same trend. The object is to avoid a multiversal war. The TVA establishes a timeline in which that war doesn't happen. In effect, they have set the course of history.

As long as the course of history is set they don't care. We don't know why the Lokis in the holographic presentation got pruned. If Troll Loki isn't allowed he would have pinged the TVA with a Nexus Event long before he became an adult. If Troll Loki had fought Thanos and died he likely would have been fine. Well...not pruned anyway. He's still dead.

The only requirement to make the two theories match up is to assume that the informational video for soon-to-be wiped variants was overly simplistic.

And frankly, the "close enough" theory is the only one that makes sense. The TVA is not big enough to handle the constant splitting of timelines that would occur if the timelines split every time someone was late for work. Keeping it locked to a single timeline would require far more than the city of people we saw. Instead, it's much easier to assume that it's only major divergences that cause a problem. That you can have a horde of different Lokis in different universes as long as they stay on script.

All of this discussion is likely irrelevant anyway. We don't know the truth and never have done. Maybe the video about the Sacred Timeline is a progandistic lie. Maybe it's true, but just leaves out important details (like the existence of "close enough" timelines). Or maybe the whole TVA is getting played and has been getting played since its inception. We don't know, and in a series focusing on Loki the answer "everything was true" is pretty darn unlikely.

[Draconi Redfir]

honestly my biggest disappointment so far is that with all the alternate Loki's running around, why have we not gotten more into the whole "Loki is an ice giant" thing? i mean we see ONE hologram of ONE ice giant Loki, but that's it.

Magic isn't supposed to work in the TVA right? How is the illusion that keeps Loki in his Asgardian form still up?

[Ramza00]

I think we can say with some confidence some things about the TVA.

Spoiler: TVA

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1) That there is not a single time line, but instead more like a time rope composed of multiple parallel enough time lines, or to use another metaphor a very curated time tree with small sapling branches pruned to reinforce the big branches the TVA cares about and calls sacred.

2) The TVA can jump back and forth among the time rope / time tree.

3) But when a divergence is too vast they can not prune the stray time line.

4) They use a form of limited prediction to predict time line divergences and prune them before they even start to diverge.

5) This prediction ability has limits, and the every day workers of the TVA do not know about the limits. For example hiding in apocalypses.

We do not know what purpose the TVA was created for, and this include the original founding myth which we are now aware is partially filled with lies. There may or may not been a time war, like wise there may or may not be 3 space lizard time keepers. Myth is a good word here for we are dealing both with mythos and logos, the limits of what the TVA can do and can not do is Logos, why they do stuff and from which legitimacy / authority is mythos. And we know some of the founding mythos is a delusion, it is at least partially false even if people authentically believe it. Delusion and Illusion two sides of the same coin, as episode 1 Loki said right before the end of the episode (this was not his literal words.)

[BRC]

Gonna stop you here because that's not quite what her propaganda video said. Her exact words were:



First of all, we already know there's one blatant lie in that video (the Time Keepers didn't actually create any of the TVA's workers, and likely don't exist at all.) So you taking all the rest of the propaganda at face value is what doesn't make much sense.

But even if we assume everything else she said is 100% accurate, you're still making a leap here. It isn't "being late for work" that created the branch, it was the Nexus Event that being late caused that did that. The video is saying that small occurrences like being late for work CAN create nexus events - not that they always, 100% of the time, WILL do that. No Nexus Event, no intervention - trhat is consistent with what we see in the show as well.

To me, it's mostly a question of
1) I assume the video is false, but that it matches the lie the TVA employees are being told. I find it hard to believe that the TVA employees are being told "There is Exactly One Timeline!" when they're working to monitor and prune multiple.

2) The early episodes do so much work presenting the "Single Timeline" option and repeating the idea of the Sacred Timeline, that I feel, like the Time Keepers, if that was supposed to be a twist, it would have been a bit more of a thing? Like, from a Doylist perspective, if you put screentime into explaining a piece of your world (There is The Sacred Timeline), but that explanation is explicitly not true, then I feel like you make a bit more hay about it than they did?


It doesn't bother me that much. The petty thing that DOES bother me is

Spoiler

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Cool Trailer moments being used as Throwaway Gags.

The trailers had "Loki was DB Cooper" and "Loki works for the Time Cops", kind of promising "Hey, at some point in his work with the Time Cops, Loki is going to need to be DB Cooper! That's Cool! I can't wait to see how that comes about!"

Instead we got a non-sequitur flashback of "Loki made a bet with Thor and was DB Cooper", which was fun I guess?

President Loki was a similar thing. The trailer sets it up as this cool moment, and dangles the bait of seeing how that situation came about.

[KillianHawkeye]

Magic isn't supposed to work in the TVA right? How is the illusion that keeps Loki in his Asgardian form still up?

Because it's not an illusion. It seems more like a natural ability he has.

In the original Thor film, they showed blue baby Loki immediately turn into a normal-skinned baby after Odin picked him up, and he didn't become blue again except for times when he wielded the ice giants' artifact.

[Psyren]

To me, it's mostly a question of
1) I assume the video is false, but that it matches the lie the TVA employees are being told. I find it hard to believe that the TVA employees are being told "There is Exactly One Timeline!" when they're working to monitor and prune multiple.

2) The early episodes do so much work presenting the "Single Timeline" option and repeating the idea of the Sacred Timeline, that I feel, like the Time Keepers, if that was supposed to be a twist, it would have been a bit more of a thing? Like, from a Doylist perspective, if you put screentime into explaining a piece of your world (There is The Sacred Timeline), but that explanation is explicitly not true, then I feel like you make a bit more hay about it than they did?

There is a subtle yet important distinction between "there is exactly one timeline" and "there is exactly one timeline we care about."

The TVA cares about a specific sequence of major events. Microscopic variations, such as

Spoiler

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Classic Loki being actually killed by Thanos

vs.

faking his death in such a way that the entire universe believed him to be dead forever,

don't matter, because the results of those two variations are actually identical. But some microscopic variations can cause Nexus Events, and stopping those events does matter to the TVA. It's that simple.

As we've seen though, there are limits to the TVA's prescience:

Spoiler: Alioth

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By leaving Classic Loki alive for decades(?) to level up his illusion powers in perfect solitude, they made the takedown of Alioth in the void by two other variants possible, which is a major event. But as that event happened at the end of time in their pruning garbage-heap, it's not something the TVA could foresee.

Cool Trailer moments being used as Throwaway Gags.

If that kind of thing truly bothers you then you might have to get used to disappointment.

The WandaVision trailer showed her bathed in the light of the intact Mind Stone. The framing of that scene, and the fact that Vision was apparently alive again so the show could happen, screamed "she fixes the Mind Stone!" As we saw in the show, that wasn't the case, but the trailer was intentionally misleading.

Similarly, the FATWS trailer set up Zemo as the Big Bad, complete with ominous voice-over. We know how that turned out as well.

With 3/3 examples of misdirect trailers in three different genres, the pattern is clear: go into the MCU shows expecting trickery.

[GloatingSwine]

2) The early episodes do so much work presenting the "Single Timeline" option and repeating the idea of the Sacred Timeline, that I feel, like the Time Keepers, if that was supposed to be a twist, it would have been a bit more of a thing? Like, from a Doylist perspective, if you put screentime into explaining a piece of your world (There is The Sacred Timeline), but that explanation is explicitly not true, then I feel like you make a bit more hay about it than they did?

Also, Loki and Sylvie's entire motivation in the plot is a rebellion against the idea of the "sacred timeline", that they are condemned to nonexistence because at some point they did something "wrong" according to the whims of some metaphysical overseer of time.

If the "sacred timeline" never existed in the first place, how does that character motivation survive? Do they meet the being behind the curtain, learn the shocking truth, and then say "oh, we'll just go home then because all of this has been useless bull****"?

[Keltest]

Also, Loki and Sylvie's entire motivation in the plot is a rebellion against the idea of the "sacred timeline", that they are condemned to nonexistence because at some point they did something "wrong" according to the whims of some metaphysical overseer of time.

If the "sacred timeline" never existed in the first place, how does that character motivation survive? Do they meet the being behind the curtain, learn the shocking truth, and then say "oh, we'll just go home then because all of this has been useless bull****"?

Didnt the last episode address this directly? Something out there ended up creating the TVA and leading to all of this. Whether its the literal time keepers or some nerd in a basement programming the robots or something in between, this didnt all just spontaneously happen out of nothing for no reason.

[Psyren]

Also, Loki and Sylvie's entire motivation in the plot is a rebellion against the idea of the "sacred timeline", that they are condemned to nonexistence because at some point they did something "wrong" according to the whims of some metaphysical overseer of time.

If the "sacred timeline" never existed in the first place, how does that character motivation survive? Do they meet the being behind the curtain, learn the shocking truth, and then say "oh, we'll just go home then because all of this has been useless bull****"?

They're rebelling against the TVA, not a specific timeline.

The "Sacred Timeline" is defined as "sequence of major events the TVA want to ensure happens."

Among those events is the notion that Loki will never be allowed to meaningfully change, or even exist in any other permutation. That is the cycle NYLoki/Sylvie want to break.

[GloatingSwine]

They're rebelling against the TVA, not a specific timeline.

The "Sacred Timeline" is defined as "sequence of major events the TVA want to ensure happens."

Among those events is the notion that Loki will never be allowed to meaningfully change, or even exist in any other permutation. That is the cycle NYLoki/Sylvie want to break.

Except Loki clearly is allowed to exist in other permutations, including just being an alligator, not shapeshifting into one, just "lol this one's a 'gator", which could not do any of the things required to follow the actions of our Loki on anything close to the "sacred timeline" because it lacks, for instance, opposable thumbs with which to do any of the things he did in The Avengers which involved holding an object, but what it got pruned for was not biomechanical incompatibility with literally any action Loki has ever taken on screen that wasn't walking but eating the wrong cat.

And yet it was allowed to mature for several years before being pruned, despite being unable to do any of the things Loki should have done at that point to, for instance, establish his relationship with Thor which is fundamental to the events of the series to date.

So even the most generous "broad strokes" interpretation of the sacred timeline is just unsustainable in light of what the series has chosen to show.

But the rigid narrowness of the sacred timeline is what is supposed to be motivating our main characters, and learning that they're wrong about that narrowness isn't going to be emotionally impactful to them except in as much as they have done a lot of running around that they maybe didn't need to.

Didnt the last episode address this directly? Something out there ended up creating the TVA and leading to all of this. Whether its the literal time keepers or some nerd in a basement programming the robots or something in between, this didnt all just spontaneously happen out of nothing for no reason.

Right, but learning the truth behind that needs to be emotionally impactful to the protagonists. There will, of course, be a Watsonian reason that it all exists, but that reason needs to be something that makes Loki feel something when they learn it, because that's how drama works.

[BRC]

They're rebelling against the TVA, not a specific timeline.

The "Sacred Timeline" is defined as "sequence of major events the TVA want to ensure happens."

Among those events is the notion that Loki will never be allowed to meaningfully change, or even exist in any other permutation. That is the cycle NYLoki/Sylvie want to break.

I mean, my crazy theory is (Based on stuff from Agent of Asgard)

Spoiler

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Loki founded the TVA.
"Loki's Survive" and "Loki's Escape"

Specifically, some version of NYLoki, who is trying to arrange things to trap himself within his own destiny: To found the TVA.

The "Sacred Timeline" is Loki giving his unwitting pawns a Glorious Purpose, when in reality his goal is selfish.

The TVA runs into so many Loki's because their actual purpose is to ensure that this one specific Loki (The one who founded the TVA) comes into existence. Any Loki that deviates far enough from that path gets pruned.

The Avenger's meddling in time was allowed because that meddling was crucial for NYLoki to become TVALoki

Sylvie and Loki trigger a nexus event on Lamentis, not because they fall in love with each other or anything, but because they're about to die, and NYLoki dying would prevent him from turning into TVALoki, hence, Nexus Event.

Sylvie's Nexus Event may have been being born the wrong Loki, or it may be that her arrest and life on the run was a necessary component of creating TVALoki. Time-travel continuity is weird.

Other Loki's get targeted because TVA Loki is petty and spiteful. Classic Loki wants to reconnect with his brother, TVA Loki hates that. Kid loki kills Thor, Hammer Loki gets the infinity stones. It seems arbitrary because it is. It's just a Loki enacting his whims on the multiverse through an army of brainwashed pawns.


The giant matter-devouring smoke monster at the end of time is Jörmungandr, one of Loki's Children according to Mythology (not that MCU matches up with norse mythology at all).


Edit: We know that the TVA Doesn't know WHAT precisely a nexus event is, unless they can compare it to the Sacred Timeline in their files and see what happened differently, which is compatible with the idea that the whole "Sacred Timeline"/Nexus-event detector is just a big bluff.

[The Glyphstone]

I mean, my crazy theory is (Based on stuff from Agent of Asgard)

Spoiler

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Loki founded the TVA.
"Loki's Survive" and "Loki's Escape"

Specifically, some version of NYLoki, who is trying to arrange things to trap himself within his own destiny: To found the TVA.

The "Sacred Timeline" is Loki giving his unwitting pawns a Glorious Purpose, when in reality his goal is selfish.

The TVA runs into so many Loki's because their actual purpose is to ensure that this one specific Loki (The one who founded the TVA) comes into existence. Any Loki that deviates far enough from that path gets pruned.

The Avenger's meddling in time was allowed because that meddling was crucial for NYLoki to become TVALoki

Sylvie and Loki trigger a nexus event on Lamentis, not because they fall in love with each other or anything, but because they're about to die, and NYLoki dying would prevent him from turning into TVALoki, hence, Nexus Event.

Sylvie's Nexus Event may have been being born the wrong Loki, or it may be that her arrest and life on the run was a necessary component of creating TVALoki. Time-travel continuity is weird.

Other Loki's get targeted because TVA Loki is petty and spiteful. Classic Loki wants to reconnect with his brother, TVA Loki hates that. Kid loki kills Thor, Hammer Loki gets the infinity stones. It seems arbitrary because it is. It's just a Loki enacting his whims on the multiverse through an army of brainwashed pawns.


The giant matter-devouring smoke monster at the end of time is Jörmungandr, one of Loki's Children according to Mythology (not that MCU matches up with norse mythology at all).

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I'll admit I want to see a Loki at the end of this just to enjoy what Hiddleston would do with the opportunity to create a event horizon of scenery-chewing snark with himself.

[GloatingSwine]

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I'll admit I want to see a Loki at the end of this just to enjoy what Hiddleston would do with the opportunity to create a event horizon of scenery-chewing snark with himself.

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Yes, I think it's inevitable at this point. I don't see much good coming from it in terms of making for interesting drama, because of the way the TVA has degenerated over the course of only five episodes from rigid custodians of one sacred timeline to "ehhh close enough", the motivations of our characters are still dead in the water they just don't know it yet.

[Draconi Redfir]

Because it's not an illusion. It seems more like a natural ability he has.

In the original Thor film, they showed blue baby Loki immediately turn into a normal-skinned baby after Odin picked him up, and he didn't become blue again except for times when he wielded the ice giants' artifact.

i always figured that was Odin casting a spell on him to disguise his ice giant nature, and the ice giant artifacts / tesseracts were just able to pull that away.

Still, wouldn't mind seeing more of his ice-giant-ness in there somewhere. i mean surely he's got SOME penchant for ice-magic or resistance to cold, right? that would be neat to explore!

[Psyren]

Except Loki clearly is allowed to exist in other permutations, including just being an alligator, not shapeshifting into one, just "lol this one's a 'gator", which could not do any of the things required to follow the actions of our Loki on anything close to the "sacred timeline" because it lacks, for instance, opposable thumbs with which to do any of the things he did in The Avengers which involved holding an object, but what it got pruned for was not biomechanical incompatibility with literally any action Loki has ever taken on screen that wasn't walking but eating the wrong cat.

And yet it was allowed to mature for several years before being pruned, despite being unable to do any of the things Loki should have done at that point to, for instance, establish his relationship with Thor which is fundamental to the events of the series to date.

Tell me, when exactly was Crocodiloki pruned? You don't actually know; Loki existed for centuries prior to the events of the MCU proper. How do you know that version would have been incompatible with what we see in MCU Phases 1-3? What if he was perfectly on track to become Infinity War Loki until the moment he ate the cat?

So even the most generous "broad strokes" interpretation of the sacred timeline is just unsustainable in light of what the series has chosen to show.

But the rigid narrowness of the sacred timeline is what is supposed to be motivating our main characters, and learning that they're wrong about that narrowness isn't going to be emotionally impactful to them except in as much as they have done a lot of running around that they maybe didn't need to.

You're still wrong - I'm telling you it's not as narrow as you think it is. Any variation that doesn't cause a Nexus Event is considered inconsequential by the TVA - it's really that simple.

Using the Avengers Time Heist as an example - dropping the Cube at Loki's feet was a variation. But it didn't become a Nexus Event until he picked it up and fled the scene. Had he ignored the cube and quietly gone into custody (thus leading into Thor 2) - no Nexus Event, no TVA intervention. Had he picked up the cube but simply held it until Thor walked over and took it from him, then took him into custody - still no Nexus Event, still no intervention.

Despite what you and ben-zayb seem to believe, merely scratching your nose with your left hand instead of your right one day does not summon the TVA, UNLESS doing so somehow creates a Nexus Event.

I mean, my crazy theory is (Based on stuff from Agent of Asgard)

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Loki founded the TVA.
"Loki's Survive" and "Loki's Escape"

Specifically, some version of NYLoki, who is trying to arrange things to trap himself within his own destiny: To found the TVA.

The "Sacred Timeline" is Loki giving his unwitting pawns a Glorious Purpose, when in reality his goal is selfish.

The TVA runs into so many Loki's because their actual purpose is to ensure that this one specific Loki (The one who founded the TVA) comes into existence. Any Loki that deviates far enough from that path gets pruned.

The Avenger's meddling in time was allowed because that meddling was crucial for NYLoki to become TVALoki

Sylvie and Loki trigger a nexus event on Lamentis, not because they fall in love with each other or anything, but because they're about to die, and NYLoki dying would prevent him from turning into TVALoki, hence, Nexus Event.

Sylvie's Nexus Event may have been being born the wrong Loki, or it may be that her arrest and life on the run was a necessary component of creating TVALoki. Time-travel continuity is weird.

Other Loki's get targeted because TVA Loki is petty and spiteful. Classic Loki wants to reconnect with his brother, TVA Loki hates that. Kid loki kills Thor, Hammer Loki gets the infinity stones. It seems arbitrary because it is. It's just a Loki enacting his whims on the multiverse through an army of brainwashed pawns.

Sure, this is entirely possible.

Spoiler: Big Bad Goal

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The BBEG could indeed be Selfish Loki, Kang, The One That Remains (i.e. alternate name for one of the other two) or something else entirely.

My one issue with your theory is that if his main goal is for NYLoki to become TVALoki to become himself, why wait until he falls for Sylvie to prune him? All that accomplishes is allowing TVALoki to reach him. And if that's truly what he wanted, why put Alioth out front to block access? All he's done is guarantee that TVALoki will be nothing like him and thus break the cycle. So while I wouldn't mind this reveal, on paper it doesn't seem likely without a lot more details we haven't been shown yet.

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The giant matter-devouring smoke monster at the end of time is Jörmungandr, one of Loki's Children according to Mythology (not that MCU matches up with norse mythology at all).

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The smoke monster is from the comics actually, first appearing in 1993. I'm not seeing anything in its original appearance tying it to Jormungandr, so I'm not sure where this is coming from.

Edit: We know that the TVA Doesn't know WHAT precisely a nexus event is, unless they can compare it to the Sacred Timeline in their files and see what happened differently, which is compatible with the idea that the whole "Sacred Timeline"/Nexus-event detector is just a big bluff.

The show doesn't really have to define it. "A variation that matters" is all that is needed.

[BRC]

Sure, this is entirely possible.

Spoiler: Big Bad Goal

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The BBEG could indeed be Selfish Loki, Kang, The One That Remains (i.e. alternate name for one of the other two) or something else entirely.

My one issue with your theory is that if his main goal is for NYLoki to become TVALoki to become himself, why wait until he falls for Sylvie to prune him? All that accomplishes is allowing TVALoki to reach him. And if that's truly what he wanted, why put Alioth out front to block access? All he's done is guarantee that TVALoki will be nothing like him and thus break the cycle. So while I wouldn't mind this reveal, on paper it doesn't seem likely without a lot more details we haven't been shown yet.

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I thought I mentioned it, maybe I didn't.
Loki wasn't pruned, he was Rescued.

The "Nexus Event" wasn't anything to do with Sylvie. Loki was about to die, which would have made it impossible for him to become TVALoki. He and Sylvie sat down, accepted each other, and, in that moment, accepted that they were about to die.
That was the "Massive Nexus Event" that alerted the TVA and prompted them to intervene.

Nexus Events shouldn't happen in apocalypses, because everybody nearby is about to die anyway. Unless somebody dying is, in of itself, the Nexus Event.

NYLoki is pruned by TVA agents during the fight in the Time Keeper's chamber. That may have been part of TVA Loki's plan, but my guess is that TVA Loki doesn't have that level of control from behind the curtain, and the alert system can't pick up on events that happen within the TVA itself. Loki got into a fight, got pruned.

TVALoki may be NYLoki who escaped with the Tesseract, ended up using it to go after the Time Stone, which he then used to set up the TVA.
Or he may be a version of NYLoki who got grabbed by the TVA, worked his way up through their ranks, and eventually went back to the beginning of time to found the organization.
Either would work. The TVA exists outside of standard time apparently, so who knows.

[/Quote]

Spoiler: Alioth

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The smoke monster is from the comics actually, first appearing in 1993. I'm not seeing anything in its original appearance tying it to Jormungandr, so I'm not sure where this is coming from.

Honestly, I thought it looked a bit like a snake, and couldn't be bothered to remember it's name so I could google it for a comics connection.

[Millstone85]

And yet it was allowed to mature for several years before being pruned, despite being unable to do any of the things Loki should have done at that point to, for instance, establish his relationship with Thor which is fundamental to the events of the series to date.

I know that Throg has his own lore in the comics, but I would like to think that the one we saw trapped in a bottle was from the same universe as Allokitor and that they fought each other like this:

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[Ramza00]

I know that Throg has his own lore in the comics, but I would like to think that the one we saw trapped in a bottle was from the same universe as Allokitor and that they fought each other like this:

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I prefer this

https://twitter.com/SadMeganGirls/st...056168449?s=20


That said Kid Loki did do Get Help with Gator Loki

[GloatingSwine]

You're still wrong - I'm telling you it's not as narrow as you think it is. Any variation that doesn't cause a Nexus Event is considered inconsequential by the TVA - it's really that simple.

Right, but the displayed level of "allowed" variation is now so broad as to mean that what causes a nexus event now is so random as to be completely meaningless. If the mere existence of an alligator Loki didn't cause one, given how different the actions and choices leading up to that must have been.

Which is a problem because it makes the entire cause of our protagonists equally meaningless, they're raging against random nonsense now.

[The Glyphstone]

Also, who's to say GatorLoki was always a gator? Boastful Loki could have just been flat out lying/making fun of GatorLoki when he talked about the cat...it could have been a botched shape-shifting spell or something that Gatorized him and drew TVA notice. Considering BLoki lies about literally everything else in his dialogue, why take this as truth?