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Fridge Brilliance

General

The mismatched title of the show fits perfectly with the premise involving Alternate Timelines. Each letter in "Loki" represents a different reality. It's also something of an Interface Spoiler hinting that multiple Lokis from different timelines are going to be involved.
The series is basically a compressed form of Loki's character journey after Avengers:
- Episode 1 is his character development through The Dark World, invoked by SHOWING him the most emotionally significant parts of that movie such as his mother's death.
- Episode 2 is the gap between The Dark World and Ragnarok, where he's pretending to be Odin and is him at his most relaxed and casual. The meeting with The Variant replicates the shock of meeting Hela, as well as a toned down version of his defeat against her.
- Episode 3 is the period in Sakaar with Thor, with the Variant as Thor and Valkyrie both: someone who knows his tricks pretty well, who he's binding with emotionally, but is a violent, distrustful woman who's been damaged by life, and they're trying to escape from a planet.
- Episode 4 is the beginning of Infinity War, where they're in the mercy of their powerful adversary whom Loki once worked for (TVA/Thanos), Loki's loved one is threatened with death but he pretends to be okay with it, only to break at the end because he's not actually that callous and does care for them. A constant, reliable presence dies (Mobius/Heimdall), and they are saved by someone they started off at odds with (B-15/Hulk), and Loki dies in the middle of very awkwardly telling someone he loves them (Awkward love confession/Love is a dagger stabbing at Thanos). His complete character arc, replicated in 4 episodes. All this is interspersed with callbacks to previous things that happened to him, such as landing from being thrown off the train in the same pose as him landing from 'falling for thirty minutes' by Dr. Strange.
  - The Time Cell scene where Loki keeps being punched, kneed in the balls and punched again is analogous to the scene where Thor tasers him, gives him a speech about being stuck in a rut, and leaves him fallen on the ground. This time he's literally stuck in a rut. Mobius completes it by telling him he can change, and even be a better person.
- This comes together in Episode 5 where the once again developed Loki has come into contact with many variants of himself, with all of them lacking in one way or another the development he received. He can barely tolerate them, and outright grimaces and cringes when all of them start a wild brawl with each other because all of them want a petty throne showing how much he's come to be disgusted with everything he once was.
- This leads to Episode 6 where he makes it clear that he no longer wants or cares about any sort of throne or illusion of power. He just wants his loved ones to be okay and is legitimately concerned with the fate of the universe as a whole.
The Infinity Stone most commonly used as a paperweight is the Mind Stone. You could say they're trying to keep their mind on their work or that all they have in their mind is work.
The next series to be released after Loki is What If...?, a series of one-shot hypothetical scenarios (including one where Loki used Thor's death at the hands of Hank Pym as an excuse to conquer Earth). Except after the finale of Loki, it is far more likely that they could be the exact immediate branches on the Sacred Timeline caused by the fallout of the Season 1 finale.
More of a meta example but the series establishing that the same person can have different appearances across different timelines helps to explain changes to characters including race, age, and even gender. It even helps to explain why a character played by one actor and then a different one (like Rhodey or Cassie Lang) looks different yet its never commented on.
- Because variants aren't automatically all the same person/being (one of the Lokis is an alligator). They can be, but often they're their own person/being occupying the same role on various timelines/in various universes—basically different continuities, if we're talking comics.
In a way, this show provides an explanation for every single questionable tactical decision from the entirety of the MCU to this point. Since He Who Remains enforces that the only decisions which happen are the ones which lead to his coming to power, it is reasonable that any other (possibly better) decisions would result in the TVA showing up. Quill keeps his cool on Titan instead of hitting Thanos? The TVA shows up and prunes it. Tony rides with Rhodey in the Humdrum-vee instead of going on his own? The TVA shows up and prunes it. Thanos has a Heel Realization and decides not to wipe out half of the universe with the Infinity Stones? The TVA shows up and prunes it. Thanos actively pursues the Infinity Stones sooner instead of having his subordinates do the work? And so on.
- Tony Stark dying at the end of Endgame is also much more reasonable in hindsight; having just cracked the secrets to time travel, who knows what insane discovery he'd come across next. Stark dying is probably the most convenient result possible for He Who Remains.
Loki’s initial arc seems similar to Tony being captured by a hostile force in the desert and held captive, going through a traumatic experience that shapes his entire world and gets him to change and develop.
In the comics Ravonna Renslayer is in love with Kang the Conqueror but here she has never met him or even heard of him. Yet all throughout the series it becomes clear that what Renslayer is in love with is the very idea of the TVA. She is fanatically devoted to the cause even though she knows that vast swathes of its dogma are an outright lie. It seems like the show is setting her up to be "in love" with Kang in the same way a Catholic would be "in love" with the Pope (i.e. adoring them as the ultimate figurehead of their faith/belief system.)
One of the faces of the Time Keepers in the courtroom bares a resemblance to Jonathan Majors foreshadowing his role as He Who Remains, and that Kang is He Who Remains from the very start.
The common complaints that some of the stuff that happened in the New York timeline in Avengers: Endgame would lead to big alternate realities even with the Avengers returning the stones, is addressed with the fact that the TVA would prune the timeline. As for how Steve was able to return the stones most likely that occurred after Sylvie killed He Who Remains which would presumably bring that timeline back and allow Steve to return them, this also fits in with the official timeline claiming that Loki (2021) takes place before WandaVision which places it as taking place either during or very shortly after the Battle for Earth in Endgame.
The Tesseract dims a lot when they enter the TVA which foreshadows The Reveal that both the stones and any kind of magic don't work in the TVA.
The TVA has no intention of anything other than pruning variants, so why the Humiliation Conga and Kangaroo Court? It helps them identify which variants are suitable candidates for recruitment, whether as analysts or hunters.
Sylvie's crown being broken is symbolic for her character in being a broken person. While Loki himself is broken, Syvlie is a special type of broken, as she never had the chance to even really be a person, had to hide herself, and never had anything that Loki had, so beyond simply the broken crown showing that it got broken in a fight it is symbolic of something deeper.
Why is the TVA headquarters' technology and culture so rooted in the 1970s, and not some era with faster office equipment, better animation, and so on? Just possibly because, if it were based much later than that, the cultural memes and tropes by which its operatives think might inadvertently wind up contaminated by those of the following decade's Back to the Future movies. And we saw in Avengers: Endgame just how hard it was for Tony and Bruce to shake those films' misconceptions (by MCU rules) about changing timelines from the other Avengers' heads.
Every case of Contrived Coincidence (like the rat who pushed the right buttons to free Scott) or illogical events (like the tendency for heroes to disguise themselves by just putting on a cap and sunglasses) has now been excused by the TVA simply decreeing it to happen. Then again, after the TVA's power being severely undermined and the Sacred Timeline no longer a thing, there's no real excuse anymore.
Sylvie's actions in Season 2 parallel those of Thanos in Endgame. He'd done what he thought was right, and now wants to rest from his crusade, but will ensure his work is not undone. Similarly, Sylvie hid out at a McDonald's, and refused to do anymore for Loki or for the TVA, but thought of killing Timely to prevent more trouble with the TVA or He Who Remains. However, while Thanos kept his work unchangeable and never saw/cared for what damage it did, Sylvie eventually let Timely live and saw for herself how things were getting spaghettified unless the TVA took control.
The end of time in the Season/Series finale displays three different shapes: a single stand, a multitude of branches, and a tree. The first represents the TVA's excessive order, the second represents Sylvie causing excessive chaos, and the third represents Loki enabling a balance between order and chaos.

Episode 1: Glorious Purpose

Loki being thrown into an unknown world where his powers are null, and having to be in his captor's employ... that's Thor's arc from Thor: Ragnarok. Only this time it's Loki's turn. The beats of Loki being processed by the TVA are similar to Thor's arrival on Sakaar. Having his clothes forcibly removed compared to Thor's forced haircut, both of them trying to use their powers only to find they don't work anymore and both having to witness another prisoner being executed. Even Miss Minutes' introductory video mirrors the "Welcome to Sakaar" presentation that Thor was forced to sit through.
It makes sense that most of the confiscated Infinity Stones are Time Stones, since logically that would be the stone most likely to cause an unauthorized timeline requiring TVA intervention. It also retroactively explains why the stone is considered to be one of the most dangerous (not that the other five are slouches in the danger department) and why Mordo and Wong were so freaked out when Strange started screwing around with it, as it is quite likely that the TVA has either had prior dealings with the Sorcerers because of the Time Stone, or had Strange continued screwing around, the TVA would have been forced to step in and bring a premature end to Strange's debut movie. Mordo even explicitly refers to branches in time as a possibility of screwing with time — which is exactly what the TVA wants to prevent.
Doctor Strange seeing only 1 chance of the Avengers winning out of 14,000,605 in Avengers: Infinity War makes sense with the knowledge that the TVA is created to uphold one and only one Sacred Timeline. There could be alternate timelines Strange sees where, for example, Star-Lord didn't botch the team's plan to take the gauntlet off of Thanos' hand back in Titan, or an alternate timeline where Thor didn't gloat at Thanos before the latter manages to give himself enough time to snap his fingers, but even if those timelines do happen, the TVA will arrive and reset them back to how events are supposed to turn out anyway.
From Loki's perspective, this is the second time in less than a day that he talks about his glorious purpose and some annoying smartass asks "And Then What?"
The scene about the death of Phil Coulson does not mention his later resurrection and his multiple adventures with the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. This may seem like a big omission, but it makes perfect sense: Mobius is trying to make a point, that Loki is a killer and even enjoys killing, and pointing that his victim had lived on does not help his case. A master manipulator like Loki would easily twist his victim's survival to claim his hands are clean. Besides, that's Loki's file, not Coulson's file, and not a general history file; nothing that Coulson did after his resurrection is relevant for Loki's biography. And the recording does not lie about the event (Coulson truly died, although he was resurrected thanks to a controversial protocol), it's simply a half-truth, so Mobius actually scammed the God of Mischief!. Also, you could say that Loki did kill Coulson, eventually. Between seasons five and six of AoS, he died after the Kree blood that healed the wound Loki gave him was burned up.
Not only are the Infinity Stones So Last Season compared to the scope of the TVA, their enforcement of the "Sacred Timeline" directly contributed to the circumstances that led to their destruction, possibly intended to remove them as a potential snag causing further variants.
The Ancient One warns Bruce that removing Infinity Stones would alter the timeline. This helps explain why there are so many Stones in the TVA—they're probably the most common cause of variants.
If one reads into the D.B Cooper story, you'll know that the $200,000 were made up of 20-dollar bills that had the letter "L" at the beginning of the serial numbers, due to the money being supplied by the San Francisco Federal Reserve branch. What a funny coincidence that Cooper's real identity in the MCU happens to be the God of Mischief himself...
If there really was a war that wiped out hundreds of timelines, then the fact that the TVA uses Infinity Stones as paperweights might not be as impressive as it seems. In the comics, Infinity Stones only work in their native timeline; if the Stones are all from destroyed timelines, then the ones the TVA uses as paperweights wouldn't be good for much else.
Why does Mobius know that Loki has no real ambition to be king besides the fact that anyone can see that by looking at Loki for more than a minute? Because he's already seen how Loki's life plays out. Not only did Loki admit he doesn't want to be king in Thor, but in Thor: Ragnarok, when he does become king, although by pretending to be Odin, he is shown to have no real ambition or aspirations.
Why does the TVA bother with all the bureaucracy and nonsense? Why do they care about whether someone's a robot? Why put someone through the pointlessness of grabbing a ticket? Why put them through the farce of a trial when they already know a variant's a variant because of their magic divergence detectors? Because they're looking for the more compliant variants who can make it to the end of the path and become new agents for the TVA. Protest too much at any stage and they'll just zap you to the end of time.

Episode 2: The Variant

One reason that the Ancient Romans in Pompeii seem unfazed by Loki's claims of a volcanic eruption might be because before this specific eruption, there was no word for volcano, which comes from the Latin 'Vulcan'.
- Despite what the subtitles say, Loki does not call Mount Vesuvius a volcano while speaking Latin. He actually says something like "that mountain has endured fires for a long time and is going to spill [fire] all over you." Also since Loki claims to be from the future, he sounds like an insane person to the people of Pompeii.
  - Further to the point of Time Travel sounding insane to Ancient Romans, while there's very old stories and myths of people going forward in time, there's very little of people going backwards in time until around the 18th century with works like Memoirs of the Twentieth Century. Even in the realm of fiction, storytelling, or myths the people of Pompeii wouldn't have a frame of reference for someone coming backwards through time from the future.
It's a wise decision for Variant Loki to choose natural disasters instead of artificial ones like Chernobyl or 9/11. With natural catastrophies like the hurricane, the chances of accidentally preventing them are significantly smaller, which certainly would create a nexus.
Lady Loki's choice of song when ambushing the Minutemen in the beginning makes an odd sort of sense.
- As Loki pointed out last episode, its in his nature to be a villain, and Villains are best countered by heroes to thwart their various schemes. The TVA, despite its benevolent intentions of avoiding a greater conflict between multiple timelines, is also erasing multiple people and events who 'don't fit' within the Sacred Timeline, which can include simply being late for work when you weren't supposed to, showing how they're not exactly 'the good guys'. In a conflict between Lady Loki and the TVA, their moral ambiguity prevents them from being the 'heroic' type necessary to thwart her schemes, thus it's a toss-up as to who would win in the end between them. The TVA needs a hero to stop her, but all they've got is another Villain in Loki himself.
- A little bit of mocking in the lines "It's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet". This happens during a one-sided slaughter, which is effectively Lady Loki saying that they're not up to the task.
- What occurs immediately before the song starts? The announcer states that a battle will take place, and the prize for the victor is "our princess". What are the Minutemen here to do again? That's right, capture a female Loki variant, a princess of Asgard. As Episode 4 reveals, Sylvie was literally a child princess who was kidnapped from her family's palace in Asgard by what must have appeared to her as evil magic-users. Staging the abduction of C-20 at a Renfair and using this song was calling them on their hypocrisy.
It makes sense that Lady Loki is much more antagonistic to the TVA than the male Variant Loki. While HE was considered variant for something he chose to do, SHE must have been considered variant because of her sex. In the lineup of Lokis Mobius shows, all the Lokis were male. The thing Lady Loki could be labeled a variant for is what sex she was born as, something she has no control over whatsoever. She was labeled a Variant for simply being born.
- Most likely reason: She’s seen playing with her toys imagining herself a valkyrie saving Asgard from an attacking dragon. She's taken by the TVA because she wanted to be a hero and Lokis are supposed to be villains. Kid Loki in a later episode states, “And whenever one of us dares try to fix themselves, they’re sent [to the void] to die.”
- Sylvie being born female was her point of variance but it just took a while for her timeline to deviate enough for the TVA to get involved.
The Sacred Timeline is not "sacred" everywhere. There are specific events in the timeline that cannot change but you are free to mess with the the timeline as long as you do not affect these events. The Apocalypse Loophole is only the most obvious of these exceptions. If you knew what metrics the TVA was using for measuring Nexus Events, you could figure out which events you could mess with and which ones would get the attention of the TVA.
Given that Loki's brother Thor is a God of Thunder, Loki must be very well practiced with that drying spell of his.

Episode 3: Lamentis

In the previous episode, Hunter C-20 is found rocking back and forth and repeating the words, "It's real" before her colleagues are able to get any sense out of her. As this episode shows, Sylvie used a memory of C-20's life on Earth to get information out of her — the 'it' was C-20's memory of her former life, which she has no conscious knowledge of.
The song used in the episode's opening, "Demons" by Hayley Kiyoko, is very appropriate for someone like Sylvie. In particular:
- The main chorus (Please forgive me I've got demons in my head), can be interpreted as C-20 being under Sylvie's influence, or alternatively, the TVA's. Don't bother me, my misery/It's holding me, won't let me speak affirms this further.
- Searching for nirvana... rather apt that the memory takes place in a bar near the beach.
Sylvie is shown to be shocked when her magic doesn't work in the TVA, after she failed to enchant a minuteman. This helps emphasise that Sylvie was never captured and brought in by the TVA, and most likely fought off the first group that went to capture her when she first became a Variant, all without any prior knowledge on the TVA.
- Episode four shows that Sylvie was taken as a child and never used magic to defend herself, most likely not having full control over her powers yet. Since she hasn't been back to the TVA since then it's little wonder she didn't realize her magic wouldn't work.
According to Loki, his mother once showed him how to turn a flower into a frog, and he did not believe that he'd learn to do it. In Ragnarok, Loki as Odin recalls how he turned Thor into a frog. He must have been testing his new spell on his brother.
It is established in both Thor and Age of Ultron, that Asgardians need to drink an insane amount of alcohol to actually get drunk. Loki needs several glasses of champagne / cocktails, because he is not a born Asgardian. He must have been terrible at Asgardian parties, and with no knowledge of him being an adopted Frost Giant he even had no clue why. Might be one of the reasons Thor's friends shunned him in Thor.
- That would explain why Loki's shenanigans in mythology usually involved him getting drunk.
The reveal that TVA agents are brainwashed variants explains the ridiculous bureaucratic nonsense and kangaroo court from the first episode. It's a test to weed out any potential recruits who would rock the boat instead of just quietly accepting what they were told.
- Adding onto this, Mobius's fixation on a jet-skiing magazine from 1992 is now cast in a different light with this knowledge. Could it be possible that Mobius is subconsciously remembering his past, just like Hunter C-20 was when Sylvie was manipulating her? He actually suggests this himself in the next episode.
- It also reframes Ms. Minutes' instructional video. It acted like it was everyone's job to ensure the integrity of the Sacred Timeline, but that's impossible because the general public doesn't know about it. If the TVA is comprised entirely of mindwiped and brainwashed variants then it makes more sense to act like everyone is contributing to maintain it.
- It also makes sense, given that the Time-Keepers can't even stop Nexus events from happening. How could they create untold millions of sapient servants, but not stop someone from creating an alternate timeline by just being late for work?
Might qualify more for Fridge Sadness, but Loki goes on a long (drunken) ramble about how love is a dagger that can be wielded from far away or up close and makes you bleed and hey, didn't he just recently stab Thor atop the Avengers Tower while whispering "Sentiment"?
- On a light-hearted note, Thor mentions being stabbed by Loki as a prank when they were children.
Why doesn't Lamentis have any other spaceships besides the Ark? By this point, anyone who could leave on their own has already done so.
- On the subject of the Ark, why is it on the side of Lamentis that's pointed towards the planet, letting it be easily destroyed? Given that it was an escape for the moneyed citizens, Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense is the likely answer.
- Or Lamentis might've been tidally locked with its much larger neighbor, and its planet-facing side received some additional light and warmth via sunlight reflected off the planet's surface. Therefore that side might have been the more habitable of the two, right up until it wasn't.
- Also, a moon that is tidally locked will only remain so while it stays on the same orbit. When the distance between the moon and the planet starts to decay, the lock will be broken since the orbital period will change, but the rotational period will stay the same.
Loki is annoyed to hear that Sylvie never had to deal with Adoption Angst, which for him was a huge driving factor towards becoming a villain. But on the flipside, Loki is able to share tons of stories about what a kind and positive influence Frigga was on him while Sylvie claims to not even be able to remember her mother. The exact details may vary between timelines, but sudden estrangement from family seems to be the core Start of Darkness for Lokis.
All the official TVA agents sans the ones helping with cases and have ‘Variant’ marked as jackets such as Loki, they don’t seem to involve anyone we have seen before in the MCU. This could mean that the TVA carefully selects which Variants are allowed to join, if a Steve Rogers or someone else famous becomes an official agent then it would arise too much suspicion on why this agent looks and sounds so much like a famous figure from history.
Why did Odin, the infamous liar, tell Sylvie that she was adopted? He probably intended to marry her off to Thor and unite Asgard and Jotunheim under one crown, so establishing that she is not kin from the get go was important.
Why did the TemPad lose its charge all of a sudden? Because Sylvie has just used it to send a lot of reset charges to different destinations, which must have used up all the "juice".

Episode 4: The Nexus Event

How did the TVA detect Sylvie and Loki within the midst of an apocalypse, and the Nexus Event itself behaving as it did? Either the two variants falling in love was something never meant to happen, which is what the TVA believe; or given the almost vertical incline of the event Loki and Sylvie were never destined to die on Lamentis-1. They were always meant to survive and solve the mystery of the TVA, so them being stranded with no way out caused a Nexus Event, and given they happen in real time, the event was mere minutes from occuring.
- Another possible reason lies in what Lady Sif said: Loki would always be alone, which is the kind of thing that can warp someone and make them unable to love (whether it be others, or themselves). With Sylvie, Loki has a reason to love, regardless of whether it's toward her, or a reason to love himself (what better way to see how great a Loki is — himself included — then from an outside perspective?)... and/or possibly even elements of both. Given that the Sacred Timeline Loki was driven by a need to be loved, and projecting his insecurities upon others, perhaps this caused (or added to) the Nexus Event.
- The next episode shows how powerful Lokis are capable of being, and how powerful Loki and Sylvie are when working together; it's entirely possible that, given another minute, the two of them could have managed to stop the apocalypse on Lamentis. That would definitely count as a Nexus Event.
- In the very last episode, we also learn that He Who Remains knows everything that'll happen ^noteup to a certain point, that is., and that eventually both Lokis would find their way to him. Ergo, them being about to actually die on Lamentis itself was a Nexus Event.
The reason why the TVA has a device that uncovers unknowing robots. The Time Keepers are robots themselves, of course they wouldn't want to come face to face with something that might expose their secret.
When Kid Sylvie is being processed, we see that she isn't wearing a collar like in the present day. Then she manages to escape. She must have been the reason why all Variants in the present wear those collars.
How are we introduced to Sylvie's timeline? By revealing the landscape of Asgard from the opposite direction.
Sylvie seems remarkably cunning for a child. Then you remember she's an Asgardian: she's likely even older than Baby Yoda at this point.
- And now she's an adult. She's been on the run from and rebelling against the TVA for centuries.

Episode 5: Journey into Mystery

Classic Loki's clothes don't look as ornate or elegant as a normal Loki variant's attire would be. But by his statement he's been hiding out for 4000 years: his clothes were bound to be worn out and scavenged together.
- Nearly every Loki variant was presumably pruned after standing trial, meaning they all ended up in the Void in TVA prison overalls. Most likely all their outfits were scavenged in the Void itself, hence why Boastful Loki's version of Mjolnir was a wrench and anvil for instance.
- Better yet, we see "our" Loki's clothes pruned off his body during TVA prisoner processing, which suggests that previous prisoners' outfits were sent to the Void as Empty Piles of Clothing also. At some point, a Loki who really did dress like that got stripped naked by the same TVA robot, and the older, ex-hermit Loki found his clothes in the Void and swiped them.
A Civil War event takes place in this... between Loki variants!
Why do the Loki variants keep being surprised when their Loki "allies" backstab them? They, like "our" Loki, keep thinking that they're "superior" to the others, that Loki ego striking again.
Classic Loki has a pensive look after Mobius tells him that he's going to take down the TVA—the very thing he has, as Classic Loki states "devoted his life to." It's likely this moment, showing that someone devoted to one cause is able to change, that helps push Classic Loki to help L1130 and Sylvie in their fight to enchant Alioth.
Look closely during Classic Loki's conjuration of Asgard. There are lightning strikes that are blue instead of Alioth's purple lightning, meaning they must have been a part of Classic Loki's illusion. Even at his moment of triumph, he was thinking of his brother Thor.
Several things, like the Thanoscopter, that fans wanted to see but wouldn't have worked in the MCU are strewn about the landscape and episode. Because this is the one place where all those things can exist without needing any setup or having any effect on the stories.
Alligator Loki looks small for an adult Alligator. Well, Loki L1130 is small for a Frost Giant.
It's no wonder that Classic Loki dies laughing as he performs his Heroic Sacrifice getting Alioth to come after him instead of L1130 and Sylvie. He's not only doing something important and good for a change, but he's doing it by hamming it up and drawing all the attention to himself. What better way for any true Loki to die?
Even though L1130 had no experience enchanting like Sylvie, his Sacred Timeline version did something similar in Ragnarok; touching Valkyrie's mind and having her briefly re-live a memory, that being the failed assault against Hela. Meaning that he — or, presumably, any Loki — has always had the potential to use their magic in this manner.
Classic Loki has come to view his "Glorious Purpose" as sacrificing himself for others. L1130 Loki ultimately comes to share this view, sacrificing himself to save everyone.

Episode 6: For All Time. Always.

The Loki Variant's personal timeline began to deviate after his escape from the Battle of New York from The Avengers (2012), the ending of which introduced the Big Bad of the Infinity War Saga, Thanos. It's only appropriate that the final episode of the first season of Loki's show introduce the new Big Bad post-Endgame: Kang the Conquerer.
Loki's hesitation to kill He Who Remains is a direct reflection of what he learned about his original timeline in Episode 1 — namely, that an offhanded decision (giving directions to a Dark Elf from his cell) could unintentionally get someone he cared about killed. Loki is trying to learn from his predecessor's mistakes and not lash out blindly with no thought to consequences.
- In a similar vein, it's really no surprise that Sylvie doesn't have the same mindset as him. While Loki has seen all the mistakes and good moments of his Sacred Timeline self (plus everything that followed in this show), Sylvie hasn't had the same level of development thus far; just companionship (possibly more) with Loki in recent days. In effect, Sylvie's development is somewhere around the level of Dark World Loki; she has been shown goodness, and she's been affected by it, but it hasn't been enough to fully change her behavior yet.
- Not only that, but she's being confronted with a choice about whether or not to take an action that she really wants, undaunted by the possibility that it will unleash cataclysm. Unfortunately, thanks to the TVA, Sylvie's spent virtually her entire life steeling herself to walk away from cataclysms without letting their impacts daunt her.
Why does Loki believe He Who Remains when Sylvie disbelieves? He saw what happened with the Variant Lokis in episode 5, she didn't.
The TVA is loosely based on 1970s Earth, the dates of the timeline use Earth's dating system, and all the Variants are humans from Earth (or at least look human). All of this makes sense with the revelation that the creator of the TVA is a man who originated from Earth.
One of the questions raised was how did the TVA gauge when an action resulted in a Nexus Event? Since the point was for He Who Remains to prevent another multiversal war, it would be anything that he himself does not know/remember/whatever his information is based on.
Speaking of nexus events, there's a bit of a Mind Screw when Loki is sent back to the TVA before Sylvie killed He Who Remains, and yet the time ripple had already passed through the TVA. So what really caused the ultimate nexus event? It wasn't the death of He Who Remains. It was the Big Damn Kiss.
Note how the Citadel has large streaks of gold lined across its walls, pillars, and floors. This imagery brings to mind the Japanese art of kintsugi, in which a broken piece of pottery is put back together with lacquer mixed with gold, giving it distinctively golden cracks. This reflects how He Who Remains maintains the Sacred Timeline: the Timeline itself is his pottery, and the TVA is the gold that repairs any and all damages (i.e. the branching timelines) in order to maintain its stability.
- This applies to He Who Remains too: he could be a Composite Character made of different versions of himself from different timelines.
- This is also why the Multiverse is represented by glass and shards in this series and other installments in the MCU dealing with the Multiverse. The Multiverse started out as one piece of glass before shattering off a shard whenever a new branch in the timeline is made. Even if one glues back pieces of shards together, it doesn't change the fact that the original piece was shattered, much like how there was still a Multiverse before Sylvie killed He Who Remains, it was just manipulated so that each Universe plays out relatively the same. The glass shards in What If...? and in the posters of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness are scattered to represent that the Multiverse has been freed.
The reveal that He Who Remains is simply using the TVA to preserve his own timeline explains why the Avengers and Captain America, in particular, were allowed to mess with time in Endgame, as the time heist and Cap's subsequent retirement must have occurred in the original timeline in one form or another. And the multiverse existing at the time even accounts for Loki's escape. This would also explain why the time travel in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Runaways (2017) was permitted by the TVA. They all occurred in the original timeline, not the sacred timeline.
- Alternately: He Who Remains has been doing this for literal eons. As such, the Sacred Timeline has existed since the beginning of time. The time travel occurring in the MCU so far has simply been a part of it (it was "allowed").
- The fact that He Who Remains is maintaining a single "sacred timeline" to prevent the rise of another Kang-like variant of himself and ultimately another multiverse war easily explains the Graviton Breaks The Earth timeline seemingly slipping past the TVA's radar. Kang can't even be born if there's no Earth for him to be born on.
The episode reveals that the training video seen in Episode 1 wasn't entirely fictional — only incomplete and twisted around a bit — which ties in nicely with two rules Trickster characters like Loki love to live by. 1) They never outright lie, only omit certain truths and 2) The best, and most plausible, lies and stories are the ones based on said truth. Like how the founder of the TVA caused the original Multiversal War, the organization exists to prevent it from happening again.
Sylvie really is a Satanic Archetype. Some interpretations, specifically in Gnostic religion, say that Satan rebelled against God to give free will and chaos to humanity. By killing He Who Remains, Sylvie has given free will and chaos to humanity.
- He Who Remains can be seen as an analogue to Yaldabaoth, the God from Gnostism as well because he can not only be seen as a false God because he is a human, but he can also be seen as being both the God and the Devil, like in some interpretations of Satan in Gnosticism, which he himself says he can be seen as, because he is the creator of the Sacred Timeline and the perpetrator of the atrocities needed to maintain the Sacred Timeline.
- He could also be the Serpent who tempts a man and a woman with forbidden knowledge and power. And the woman falls for it. Which could explain why he's eating an apple.
Back in episode 1, Mobius explained that Loki was destined to cause chaos, so that other people could ultimately become the best versions of themselves. Given what Sylvie did, things have really come full-circle...

Episode 7: Ouroboros

Why does O.B remember events that happened hundreds of years ago when the other TVA employees are implied to have been memory-wiped? Because the TVA itself probably forgot he exists. With how vast and busy the organization is all the time, combined with O.B himself being tucked away in the lowest parts of the building, it's possible he just slipped through the cracks when He Who Remains or whoever was in charge was listing all the workers who needed their memories wiped. Adding to this is how Miss Minutes is much easier and more practical to access for technical questions, meaning O.B being overlooked by the organization is entirely plausible, especially with how few visitors he receives.

Episode 8: Breaking Brad

It's revealed that Casey has the TVA Guidebook memorized. Since he's an immortal being stuck at a desk job, it makes sense if that was the only reading material he had.
Loki, albeit inadvertently, fools Mobius for the first time while standing with two duplicates of himself as he doesn't feel the need to be the one in the centre as Mobius assumes he would, illustrating Loki's character development from Series 1.

Episode 9: 1893

Victor Timely refusing to partner up with anyone interested in his work seems somewhat dickish, but it's entirely justified given the time period he lives in. After all, the 1800s were not exactly accomodating for African-Americans in US society, and Victor probably knows all too well that a wealthy white man can and will take advantage of him to line their pockets and steal the credit for his inventions.
Miss Minutes being mistaken for a ghost or monster when she still looks like a cartoon... to us. Cartoons didn't exist in the 1800s, and people were going to see her the way today's people see the biblically accurate angels meme. (And if anyone would know about the history of animation, it would be Disney!)
Sylvie choosing to spare Timely when she made it her mission to kill any He Who Remains variants makes since when she found him, he was on his knees and pleading. She most likely saw herself all those years ago, a variant who had their life ruined by the TVA for doing something they didn't know was prohibited.

Episode 10: Heart of the TVA

After the events of this episode, you realize why the first episode of the season is titled "Ouroboros", and not just because it's named after Ke Huy Quan's character: Loki pruning himself is just like the snake eating its own tail!
Brad trying to to quote Galileo or Winston Churchill while in the TVA's holding cell with Dox seems like a funny little way of trying to rouse people up, but it also makes sense to some extent. After all, Brad's experience with movie making likely had him memorize a couple of monologues or play different roles before he was caught by Mobius and Loki, and he's trying to recall what he may have said while performing.

Episode 11: Science/Fiction

Casey being able to understand the complex TVA tech makes sense with the revelation that he's actually Frank Lee Morris, who did have a very high IQ in real life.
Frank being captured and brainwashed by the TVA to serve as one of their workers makes a lot of sense if one takes into account that he and the two prisoners he escaped with were never seen again after they got off Alcatraz. It's incredibly likely that the TVA were more than happy to take advantage of his missing status to capture and brainwash him into their perfect obedient worker.
- They might have not used a Reset Charge. Nobody would’ve seen the escapees again and any impact the Hunters had on the environment would vanish or be overlooked.
- It's likely that Frank and the others surviving the trip across the bay is exactly the divergence that attracted the TVA's attention.
Mobius had two sons, one of whom was a troublemaker, explaining his natural empathy with the vulnerable, especially with children - even troublesome man-children.
- Mobius is frequently seen eating on the job, but it may have been a trait he developed as a salesman. Don is frequently buttering someone up with doughnuts and beer, and this habit carried over to his TVA variant.
Hunter B-15 being hostile and unpleasant to Loki in Season 1 makes a lot more sense after learning that her original self Verity Willis was living in New York in 2012. She most likely was a first-hand witness to Loki's invasion, and subconsciously remembered what he did, especially since she had to go back to her original time to arrest him in the Season 1 premiere.
Why are Loki and Sylvie the only people who weren't reset to their original selves after failing to stop the Loom from imploding in the previous episode? Because their branched timelines don't exist anymore, having been pruned by the TVA years prior. The other members of the group that Loki brings together all come from timelines that are currently branching and haven't been pruned, meaning the TVA failsafe was able to send them to a place to be reset. Because Loki and Sylvie don't have branched timelines to go back to, they remain exactly as they are.

Episode 12: Glorious Purpose

This episode having the same title as the first episode of the series fits in with how the plot is Loki continually going back in time to relive certain events to see if he can change anything. He even travels back to the first episode.
It's stated that Asgardians and Frost Giants live thousands of years; however, as Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston have been playing these roles for over a decade, viewers will start to note that the actors themselves will age even as their characters aren't really supposed to. This episode has Loki reliving a time loop that is centuries long, and so going forward (presuming this isn't the last we've seen of Loki) if Loki looks older due to Tom Hiddleston's natural aging, this Time Skip can be used as the reason why.
- Additionally, Loki is exposed to the temporal radiation sans protective suit for about two-three minutes. The easy workaround is that he’s shaved decades or even centuries from his life this way.
O.B's memory, at least his knowledge, was not erased because he and Timely are required for He Who Remains' contingency plan to work.
Mobius as a Hunter hesitated to prune an 8-year-old boy for being a variant, which makes sense given his life as a single father of two sons on the timeline. Even if his memory was wiped, his paternal instincts are still there.
He Who Remains unwittingly gave Loki everything he needed. He gave him the ability to time slip, thus allowing him to go back and ask O.B. how long would it take to learn everything he knows, which gave Loki the knowledge he would need to master his new time powers, which would then allow him to meet Mobius back in Episode 1 for advice and gave him the "Eureka!" Moment he needed to make his choice. In short, no matter what he does, Kang, including his own Variants, seem always destined to ruin themselves.
Loki gives off green energy when he uses his powers. The Time Stone is green, in all realities and timelines of the multiverse. If anything, him as the new Loom (which comprises of the past, present and future) might be the reason why the Time Stone is green in the first place.
Loki mirrors Doctor Strange in being willing to put himself through a near eternity of experienced time as well as gaining mastery of it.
In (some versions of) Norse Mythology, Loki's final punishment for arranging Baldur's death was as follows: First, he was restrained, then his two sons were brought before him, one was transformed into a wolf and devoured the other, then was gutted by the other gods, while Loki was Forced to Watch. Second, Loki was taken deep into the earth, and his sons' entrails were used to bind him to rocks in a deep cave. Finally, a serpent was posed above his face, dripping acidic venom into his eyes. Loki's wife stood by his side, catching the venom in a bowl, but when it got too full she had to go and empty it, leaving Loki under the dripping venom, where his agonized thrashings would shake the Earth (causing earthquakes). Loki's final fate here: binding himself in the branches of timelines, taking up a throne, spending his power to give the multiverse harmony. Should his position be disrupted, chaos and destruction will again quake through the timelines he's holding stable. For bonus points, the multiverse Loki binds together looks like Yggdrasil.
The previous episode ended with Loki helplessly reaching for the strands of the timeline as it was being erased, as if he was desperately trying to keep it all together. This comes full circle in the finale, when he is able to physically grasp the branches of time and weave them into a multiverse.
All the way back in Thor, Odin's statement is that only one of his sons will ascend the throne, but both were born to be kings. Back then he was referring to Thor and Loki and becoming kings of Asgard and Jotunheim respectively. Now Thor served as King of New Asgard and Protector of Midgard's cosmos while Loki as the Loom becomes the God of Stories, Time and the King of the Multiverse.

Fridge Horror