Headscratchers / Loki (2021)

How did Loki know about the Time Heist?

• In Endgame, Loki is visibly confused at the shenanigans that lead him to taking the Tesseract. But here, it's revealed that he supposedly knew the Avengers were time traveling because he smelled the cologne off two Tony Starks. This is laughable. How do you distinguish the scent of cologne as belonging to separate people? If two people stood in front of you wearing the same scent, all you would be able to tell is that at least one of them is wearing it. But even excusing all of that, why is time travel the conclusion he comes to when it could just be that someone else happened to be wearing Axe body spray on that day?
  • To be fair, Tony Stark probably doesn't wear Axe body spray. If a cologne exists in the MCU, that guy can afford it, so maybe it was a super rare super expensive brand that no one else uses, and Loki noticed it because he's an Agent Peacock who spent a few hours in Stark's penthouse?
  • He has figured out that he's been arrested for something that has to do with time travel, and he knows he hasn't done any of that. So naturally, it must have been the guy who there was two of, and his buddies.

What use is American cash on Asgard

• As cool as it is to see that Loki was actually D.B Cooper, what exactly was Thor going to do with American cash on Asgard? Something tells me Asgard doesn't accept that kind of currency...
  • The line about Loki losing a bet to Thor wasn't saying that Loki needed to pull off the D.B Cooper heist in order to pay off Thor (since Loki surely has easier ways to make money), it was saying that as a condition of losing the bet to Thor Loki had to play a prank on Midgard. Seems like a light-hearted condition the less responsible pre-Thor 1 Thor would impose on the God of Mischief, particularly since Loki seems to be enjoying himself during the whole affair.
  • Loki dropped a considerable amount of the cash when the Bifrost picked him up and gave no sign of being concerned about it.

The TVA not reacting to other timeline meddlers

• Why didn't the time heist in Avengers: Endgame register on the TVA's radar?
  • The actions of the Avengers is explained in the first episode. The Time Heist was supposed to happen as part of the Sacred Timeline. Loki escaping wasn't meant to happen.
  • Which is absurd since the events in the film took place because Loki escaped. Had he not, Tony and Steve wouldn't have needed to make a second jump to retrieve the Tesseract earlier.
• What about Steve settling in the past with Peggy for ultimately selfish reasons? A simple explanation though maybe heavy handed might be that the TVA are a police force that like police in real life serve a system rather than the people. That system being the “proper flow of time” which is decided by a few bureaucrats who are probably just as flawed as those they deem worthy or unworthy of meddling in time.
  • If the screenwriters' theory about Steve always being Peggy's husband is true, then that might mean that Steve was meant to go back.
  • However that can still go under these Timekeepers deciding who and who isn’t meant to go back as a system being run served by a police force.
  • We see a Peggy variant being hauled into the TVA behind Loki.
• Why didn’t the TVA respond to Thanos and his army jumping to 2023, effectively removing them from the timeline in 2014?
  • (Technically) never happened. Cap returns the Power Stone to Morag at the end of Endgame (and prevents Rhodey from knocking out Quill if necessary), and the events of Guardians of the Galaxy proceed in that timeline as they should. It's weird, but it works.
  • That idea doesn’t work - the moment Nebula steps foot in 2014, she sets off a chain of events that alert Thanos to the Avengers’ actions and provides him with knowledge of the future. It’s not a simple case of just returning the Power Stone.
  • Because travelling through time does not count as a crime against the sacred timeline if the time travel itself is meant to be a part of the timeline. They state this very clearly in the first episode when they say that the Avengers' time heist was supposed to happen.
• Why didn’t the TVA respond to the actions of Team Coulson or the Chronicoms in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
  • The pre-Disney + MCU television series where always rather loosely connected to the movies, and there has been quite some debate already about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s canon status since the start of season 6^note The climax of Season 5 happened simultaniously with the climax of Avengers: Infinity War as Thanos' attack on Wakanda was mentioned, but season 6, which is set a year after these events and thus technically during the 5 year Time Skip between IW and Avengers: Endgame never shows or references the effects of The Snap. So while no official statement has been made and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is technically still part of the same timeline as the movies, it's not too big a stretch to imagine that show being set in it's own seperate continuity^note probably a What If? in which Thor did go for the head and killed Thanos before he could perform The Snap, and thus having no ties to Loki.
  • Either that, or, like the Avengers' time traveling, all the time travels in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. where meant to happen to preserve the Sacred Timeline. The TVA knew about them all along, but didn't interfere since everything played out as intended.
  • Regarding the above, this explanation also covers why Dr. Strange playing havoc with time, or Chase and Alex jumping through time, does not raise red flags with the TVA.
• Making a new bullet point because this is a reply to all of the above. From what we heard about the TVA so far (mostly the information on episode 1, some from episode 2), it seems like there being a multiverse is the natural state of things (that's what existed before the TVA started meddling), and they're forcibly trying to keep things constrained to a single timeline of their choosing, for reasons yet unknown (they claim it's to avoid "another" multiversal war, but they could be lying). As such, it seems like they (the Time Keepers in particular) are the ones that pick and choose what the "Sacred" Timeline is, it's not some natural order of things that is decided by fate or anything like that. Everyone in the universe has free will to choose their own path, and every choice creates its own variant timeline, but the TVA destroys all but one of these variants, and calls the remaining one "sacred". As such, time travel is not really what causes branches to form, all choices are, and the Time Keepers may pick a timeline that has some time travel to be the "correct" one, specially if said time travel is consistent in a way that leaves no branches. Why would they choose as their sacred timeline one that is so complicated? We don't know yet, but everything surrounding the Time Keepers is an open mystery right now, I think it should be expected that some of these mysteries will be answered in time.
  • There's a reference to them still untangling the "epilogue" so my guess is that the Time Keepers started from some specific point in the future and the "Sacred Timeline" is what was required for them to exist. I'd theorize that they're having problems with everything that happens after the point in real universe time they decided to establish the TVA. It's easy to pick a timeline when you know which events are required for you to exist, you just pick those ones. It's everything after your existence that creates the problem, especially if you've removed yourself from the flow of time. There's no goal or specific event to work towards, you just kind of have to guess which one is "right".
  • In the comics, the Time Keepers were created at the end of time of the previous universe and were in conflict with the Time Twisters (who were also the Time Keepers). It's possible that they're striving to ensure their own existence/their own future versions. And the epilogue is because they can't look past the end of time of their multi-verse. Adding complexity, since the TK also exist in the past, the TVA may be something of a charade - not actually preserving any actual 'sacred' timeline so much as a massive self-consistency cycle. That is the TVA exists to ensure the Time Keepers exist who exist to ensure that the TVA itself exists...
  • Something to consider as well is that The Snap was an universe-wide apocalypse event. It's quite likely and possible that, barring something truly divergent, anything the Avengers did in context of The Snap couldn't have caused variance. Particularly because they were outright trying not to cause change. In some sense, The Blip was kind of an... anti-apocalypse - or at least an event of equal magnitude - that it also couldn't really be changed, just influenced.
• As of the final episode of the season there could be another simple explanation for why the TVA did not prune the divergent timelines creates by the Avengers and the Shield Agents; We are told in the finale by the Kang variant who created the TVA that it's purpose is to prevent other hostile Kang variants from generating in the multiverse and starting another multiverse war. So perhaps the timeline branches created by the Avengers in Endgame (specifically the branch created when 2014 Thanos and his army left for the future) and the ones seen in AOS seasons 5 and 7, are simply timeline branches that do NOT result in a hostile Kang variant, and therefore are timelines which the TVA has no interest in pruning?
  • This could be it, I think. I mean, the TVA doesn't seem to prune ALL divergent timelines. Not immediately. Or why would Sylvie even exist? If she wasn't supposed to exist at all, she would have been pruned right after or even before she was born and not when she was a young girl. Or almost any of the other Loki variants? They were all only pruned when they created a nexus event.
• Another simple explanation for this question could be that the shows and movies we see in the MCU have always been part of the FREED timeline that comes into existence after the end of Loki. The show may have been released in Phase 4, and feature a Loki who we see escape during Endgame, but the TVA itself and the Void Beyond Time both exist outside of the timeline and normal linear time/space flow, and when the timeline is "freed" at the end of the series, it starts branching all across history. It isn't like the multiverse comes into existence at a specific moment during phase 4 when it did not exist previously; once Loki and Sylvie end up freeing the timeline in their show, then the multiverse exists *and has always existed* retroactively as well.
  • Makes sense In-Universe, but as far as the phasing of the MCU as a whole goes it is unlikely. Kang, the overarching Big Bad of the post-infinity stories was freed as a result of this season's plot, if he always existed in the universe that we've been seeing this would raise the question of why he hasn't been around causing trouble so far.

The TVA and the fate of divergent timelines

• What exactly does the TVA do with divergent timelines? Are they simply left alone or are they destroyed?
  • This is explained in the first episode. The timeline is reset, so yeah, the divergent timelines are basically destroyed.
• What about the divergent timelines in What If...? Will those be destroyed?
  • Those are natural parallel universes, not divergent timelines, which are created via time travel.
  • Divergent timelines are not solely created by time travel; as Miss Minutes notes, variants occur any time anybody makes a decision the Time Keepers don't consider part of the "Sacred Timeline," no matter how mundane or innocuous.
  • "What If" might take place far in the future meta-temporally, long after the TVA has stopped existing.
• Is the Ancient One (and everyone else) from 2012 New York in Endgame therefore erased from existence by the TVA because Loki took the tesseract, requiring a TVA reset?
  • Only from the point when Loki stole the Tesseract; the rest of it was "meant" to happen.
• Do the timelines get completely erased or do they continue to exist but playing out the exact same events, so that you would have six parallel Sacred Timelines? The word 'reset' doesn't necessarily mean 'erase'.
  • Sort of. How it basically works is that when a timeline is reset, it sort of "merges" with the sacred timeline, and gets flattened before disappearing. This doesn't mean that everyone in the timeline is erased from existence, just that the events sort of combine together.
  • Maybe the diverging timeline is corrected and goes on until it's near-identical to the original, and then they get merged? This could explain things like recastings or minor continuity errors.
• What about the alternate Spider-Man timelines that crossed over with the MCU in No Way Home? How was there time for so much to happen in them before the TVA could prune them? And likewise with the alternate timelines on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D?

Steve getting the Time and Mind Stones before the reset

• The TVA reset (destroyed?) the alternate Battle of New York timeline soon after Loki used the Tesseract. Then it seems like Steve shouldn't have had enough time to return the Time and Mind Stones? Was he always unkowingly at a close call of getting caught in the reset for the other timelines? How was he able to spend the rest of his years with alternate Peggy if it seems like the TVA has to reset these timelines as soon as possible?
  • Well, as the writers/directors for Endgame have pointed out, Steve can only reset the Battle of New York's alternate timeline to the way it went in the prime timeline if he finds Loki and seizes the Tesseract of 2012 from him. Presumably, he went back, put the Time and Mind stones back where they belonged, resigned himself to the fact that he cannot necessarily go after Loki because he doesn't know where Loki went, and then dipped out to return the other stones before the TVA stepped in and rendered that part of his mission moot by resetting everything anyways. As for living his life with Peggy, if Steve was always meant to return to Peggy in much the same manner the Avengers were always meant to perform the Time Heist, then the TVA may have simply left him alone because Steve going back in time is part of the Sacred Timeline and thus he didn't do anything wrong.

1970 trip

• It’s stated that the Avengers traveling back in time was meant to happen, while Loki escaping with the Tesseract was not. However, it was only because of that event that Steve and Tony went back to 1970 to get another Tesseract. Shouldn’t that timeline have been considered an unexpected variance?
  • Steve and Tony didn't actually do much to alter that 1970s timeline, so it would be pretty easy to fix if it was a variance. All the TVA would have to do is wipe the memories of anyone in Camp Lehigh that had seen or interacted with them, and make sure the Tesseract is back in place (which Steve was going to do anyways), and probably replace those missing Pym Particles, assuming Steve wasn’t going to do that himself.
    • Instead of Bruce or Rocket having to make a new Tesseract, the TVA might've just replaced the missing one with one of their paperweights, and Old Steve just casually has the Space Stone now.
  • It's entirely possible that everything leading up to Loki picking up the Tesseract was meant to happen. Hulk was always going to slam the door open, causing Tony to drop the Tesseract, which could have been picked up by someone other than Loki, forcing Tony and Steve to go back to 1970.
  • It's also possible that they were supposed to succeed in getting the Tesseract. The reason they don't get in trouble for going back to the 1970s is because they minimized their impact and then fixed what they could. It was just a different path to the same goal. Imagine how many of your actions can be changed without impacting anything. You start on your left foot instead of your right. You take one parking spot instead of the one across from it. Deviating from the Sacred Timeline only matters when timing is important. Had Strange not orchestrated things, Thanos would have snapped away half the universe outside that one minute window when Scott was in the Quantum Realm. The person that gets to their subway train just as the doors close, which means they aren't there when a bomb goes off.
  • When they went back to 1970, stealing Hank's Pym Particles would have left a big impact, especially given how important they were and how protective Hank was of his work, and they didn't fix that. You'd expect the TVA would have at least stepped in to replace the particles, otherwise maybe Hank becomes as paranoid as Tony and helps him out with Ultron, leading to an Ultron with Ant-Man powers. Pretty big variance.
    • That doesn't really work here though since both Steve's and Tony's future actions are completely decided on making that detour. Without seeing Peggy, Steve doesn't choose to stay in the past with her after returning the Stones and thus doesn't pass the mantle of Captain America to Sam. Without talking and finding some closure with his father it's unlikely that Tony would be in the perfect state of mind to perform the Heroic Sacrifice needed to take out Thanos once and for all. The trip HAS to happen. Which leads to only two possible scenarios.
    • One, as mentioned above, everything up to Loki snatching the Tesseract and bailing was supposed to happen but it was supposed to fall into someone else's hands, somehow rendering it impossible for Tony, Steve, Bruce and Scott to actually nab it (this feels incredibly unlikely due to the intelligence and ability of the four).
    • Two, He Who Remains somehow made it so that Loki escaping would be considered a Nexus Event which would set off his journey throughout the show, as he mentioned he paved the path to be discovered by Loki and Sylvie.

”I was young and I lost a bet to Thor.”

• Would an event from 50 years ago really seem that long ago to Loki?
  • Probably not necessarily. But it might just be that finding out about his adoption and then breaking off contact with his family to try to take over earth felt so significant to Loki that he feels like another person altogether. And thinks that his earlier self was oblivious and naive, similar to how some people view their younger selves.
  • He may been trying to downplay his culpability.
  • Similar exchange to this:
    Thor: Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother.
    Natasha Romanoff: He killed 80 people in two days.
    Thor: He's adopted.
  • Similar style of speech because they're brothers(/have similar writers), and both are trying to distance themselves from an embarrassing detail.

Heimdall taking part in the bet.

• Thor and Loki were the sort of guys who would pull off the D.B. Cooper “prank” prior to the events of the first movie. Heimdall, however, is not the sort of guy that would involve himself in such shenanigans and is very strict about who goes in or out of Asgard. How did they convince him to use the Bifrost?
  • Maybe he fabricated an important reason to go to Midgard, did the D.B Cooper thing, and then got chewed out by Heimdall when he returned to Asgard for deceiving him. Loki is the God of Lies after all.
  • Could be that Heimdall is less strict than he seems, and allowed his bosses kids a little harmless fun on Midgard. He might only be strict when there's a need for it (say, Thor planning to do something VERY dangerous and VERY stupid, or Loki actively intent on something harmful. Wheras "I lost a bet and Thor wants me to go steal Midgardian money" might be met with "Fine, just don't stay out past curfew".

The Gamora Variant

• Seeing as though the TVA "prunes" any timelines that don't adhere to the proper flow of time, would that mean the alternate 2014 from Avengers: Endgame would have to be deleted? And if so, does that mean the 2014 Gamora would have to be captured by the TVA since she's part of that dead timeline?
  • Not if her staying in the original timeline was supposed to happen.
  • Nothing we've seen as of episode 3 indicates that it would be possible to reset that particular timeline: Thanos and his army vanished from it and were dusted in 2023. Unless the TVA uses its spare Infinity Stones to undust them and place them all back in 2014 with erased memories at the moment they left, which hasn't been indicated, then that timeline remains fundamentally altered. Maybe it was meant to. The other timelines, except one, would be easier to reset: erase the memories of Lila (2018), the installation staff (1970), the Asgardians (2013) and the people in the Stark Tower lobby (2012). As for the Peggy (1949) timeline, if she is indeed a variant then perhaps the story of that variant will be explored in the future.
  • Since the Avengers going back in time, and presumably Steve then correcting the timeline, is part of the Sacred Timeline, that off-shoot 2014 is needed and would have to be left alone until Steve has put the Orb back: maybe, it deviates at a slower rate than a normal branching or even not branch off until Steve has been there and gone, plus, that'd be a case where the TVA would have very clear instructions from the "Time-keepers" to wait until Steve did. At that point, most of Thanos's army would essentially have been "pruned" by Tony's Snap, except for Gamora, which would save the TVA the trouble, but yes, would also make bringing that timeline back to normal impossible, so resetting it is. As for Gamora... well, who's to say that the TVA's going after her is not the plot of Guardians of the Galaxy 3? If so, remember that Loki's is with the TVA (sort of as of episode 6), while Thor is with the Guardians AND knows about temporal variant because precisely of Gamora.

Uh...meow?

• Why would the Time-Keepers create a random cat to live in a giant bureaucracy existing beyond the flow of time? And how would the TVA employees take care of it when they're constantly working and don't even know how the outside world works or what exists outside of it?
  • There's a theory that this is Schrödinger's Cat and they kept it after it violated the Sacred Timeline by staying alive.
  • Maybe is a Flerken adopted and trained to be a "guard dog".
  • Maybe it's the cat that Alligator Loki was supposed to have eaten instead, and the TVA team that pruned that particular variant didn't have the heart to prune it, too.

Shouldn't Loki be blue?

• If magic doesn't work in the TVA, shouldn't Loki have reverted to his frost giant appearance?
  • As a possibility, Loki's glamour isn't an active magic anymore, so much as something that's suffused his very being. As we've seen, his human form has persisted through unconsciousness, electrocution, DEATH... it's less magic and more a part of him.
  • The same probably applies to Sylvie and the other Loki variants.
  • In other words, No Ontological Inertia is averted. After using magic to change someone's form, it would take more magic to change them back.
• Back in Thor, we see baby Loki turn pink as soon as he's picked up by Odin. Conversely, he only ever turns blue when touching something really cold, like a Frost Giant trying to freeze his arm off or the Casket of Ancient Winters. So, his default colour when in a (presumably-) heated building might indeed be pinkish, with the blue pigmentation only being a temporary adaptation to the cold used as needed. If so, it's not magic any more than an ermine's changing its coat colours depending on the season (though a tad swifter).
  • Whether Loki is an exception in this, given he's already a runt for a Frost Giant, is debatable: we only see "normal" Frost Giants when they're either in a very cold place (Jotunheim) or actively drawing in the cold (the war on Earth, their invasion of Asgard). In mythology, Frost Giants and Aesirs are related, kind of like Neanderthals and modern humans in real life, or maybe mutants (like the X-Men) and humans in the comics, to the point that Bor's wife (and thus Odin's mom) is a Jotun. So all Jotnar may turn pinkish in a sufficiently-warm place.
• Maybe Loki's human veil did start to fade upon arrival, but the TVA wanted him to look like his photos in their files for easy identification, so they slapped a magic-specific time-stoppage effect on it before his appearance could actually change?

Did the Space Stone send Loki to the past?

• The clothing the Mongolian natives were wearing was kind of archaic.
  • No. That was just an exceedingly remote spot in the Gobi Desert, and the people were wearing traditional dress.

TVA and Apocalypses

• So the TVA never realized that local and sudden apocalypses would be more-or-less ideal hiding spots due to no witnesses of variant behaviour until Loki made the connection?
  • It's fair to say that they simply never dealt with a variant "hiding" in time and moving like the Loki variant did. The variant is dangerous enough that Mobius decides to commandeer the Protagonist Loki variant because the only one who could understand Loki is Loki. Additionally, they don't actually know what the variant wants, they don't always hide in apocalypses (like the event in Oklahoma), and it still leaves the question of which apocalypse they could be hiding in. It should also be evident that an agency like the TVA whose members don't even know what a fish is may be very conservative in their detective skills. They rely on tracking variant energy and rushing the suspect down.
  • Also worth noting is that The Variant has TVA technology, and is capable of moving through time like them. I imagine the TVA rarely has to deal with that sort of thing.

Touching the Tesseract

• Isn't the Tesseract supposed to teleport people who touch it, like it happened with Red Skull?
  • Nope. Carol Danvers touched it and she doesn't teleport. Same with Goose. The Tesseract just teleported Red Skull on its own because the thing doesn't like Skull.
  • The Tesseract teleported Red Skull because it had been charged up by the Valkyrie plane’s engine, then Red Skull being smacked into it malfunctioned the engine and caused the Tesseract to go off and open a portal. If the Tesseract isn’t charged then it’s safer to handle, though Fury in The Avengers still found it hot to the touch.
  • The Tesseract burned through the hull of the Valkyrie after Red Skull was banished to Vormir. Fury handled it a few minutes after it opened the portal for Loki after the portal was opened on the other end, so it had a little time to cool.
  • The Power Stone is supposed to obliterate whoever touches it, the Reality Stone would possess them, yet the TVA managed to get their hands on those, too. They just overpower the stones and that's that.
  • They don't necessarily overpower the stones, since presumably all they have to do is get the stone to their realm and they become powerless.

Fight in Roxxcart

• Lady Loki enchants humans to fight Loki L1130, including a burly guy who throws him across the store. Loki has to use household appliances and telekinesis to keep up in the fight. Given Loki survived a beatdown from the Hulk, shouldn't an ordinary (if buff) guy be a piece of cake for him to fight?
  • The brainwashing probably also includes a "superhuman strength" buff (otherwise it would be largely pointless, except for delaying Loki L1130 by a few seconds).
  • It is worth nothing that in most real world mythology featuring gods and spirits possessing humans, the humans in question are granted the abilities of the thing possessing them. Loki (and The Variant) are considered gods afterall.
  • Loki might have been holding back. He wants to talk with his fellow Loki variant, and destroying said variant's mouthpiece is counterproductive to that goal.
  • Even if he's holding back, presumably a normal person shouldn't be able to throw him across a room. And he seems to be doing serious (defensive) fighting when he summons the Roomba and full size vacuum cleaner. The superhuman buff spell makes sense of this, though.

Loki's magic in Roxxcart

• With regard to the same fight, why didn't Loki use any magic? We explicitly saw at he could do it when he entered the store.
  • If you count his telekinesis in summoning an appliance, he uses a little bit of magic in the fight.
  • His most powerful magic is also primarily illusion-based, and it's questionable how much good that would do against another Loki.

TVA knowledge of the Loki Variant killing their agents

• There's a Freeze-Frame Bonus in the stack of papers Loki L1130 is given on the Variant attacking TVA agents. It identifies someone as Sylvie Laufeysdottir◊. Does the TVA know or have suspicion that it could be a female Loki, then? Why do they never consider that when skimming through Loki Variants before going on the reconnaissance mission to the Renaissance Fair? And why do TVA agents consistently use male pronouns when referring to the Loki Variant they are hunting?
  • Most Loki variants are male, so they probably just assume "male" when talking about Loki Variants. This is if they care enough not to use "It".

What did the Variant do?

• It's been established that Reset Charges are supposed to revert anything and everything that changed in the alternate timeline back to the standard flow. So did the Variant Loki do something to them at the end of the second episode to alter the properties of the charges into something else to cause all those branching timelines?
  • Yes, the ending of the second episode implies that the reset charges were modified somehow. The TVA says they "reset", but Loki says that they "vaporize". So it likely that The Variant did something to damage the Sacred Timeline by setting off so many at once.

Loki's sudden compassion

• Why would Loki be concerned for Hunter B-15's well-being? Especially considering there's nothing but hostility between the two.
  • I think it's less about compassion and more about curiosity. I mean, wouldn't you want to check up on a person after they slump to the ground post-Demonic Possession? Even if it's somebody who you hate?
    • Especially if assessing their condition might tell you more about the powers of the person you're both going up against.
  • To paraphrase Mobius, pick one: Loki is a) making sure Hunter B-15 won't get up again to cause more problems, b) not quite as much of a villain as he acts like (and/or wants to be).
  • In a weird way, he may actually like the TVA staff. They aren't treating him like Thor's brother, and they respect his power. He may even view B-15 as a Worthy Opponent. Loki is actually having to try to outsmart them, and he may enjoy the challenge.

Complete lack of guns

• Why doesn't the TVA have firearm versions of their pruning rods? Having to always engage hostiles at close-range seems really impractical.
  • Maybe a long-range pruner would be too dangerous given the need to minimize disruption to the timeline- if you missed your target, you might vaporize something you don’t want to erase or reset, which could have cascading effects. The batons have limited range and it’s harder to miss.
  • Have we not learned that guns are considered primitive to advanced societies in the MCU?
    • Literal gunpowder firearms, yes. Ranged weapons, no. Even Wakandans and aliens still recognize the value of being able to attack from a distance.
  • Stray shots' pruning the wrong things from sites at which you're supposed to be erasing every conceivable trace of temporal deviation - deviations, including the clean-up crews' own temporary presence - would be counterproductive.

Where do radically different-looking Variants come from?

• This will almost certainly be addressed at some point, but: if there’s only one timeline, and Variants are just people who deviate from that timeline, then how can species- or gender-swapped, etc. Variants exist? Doesn’t that imply the existence of a whole other timeline with a different chain of past events, one which presumably would not be allowed to exist by the TVA?
  • I don't know how it would be established for other characters, but Loki is known to be a shapeshifter. Perhaps that property of Lokis allows for the different variations to be more distinct than just actions alone. That might be a little bit off from the answer, but that's how I've been understanding it.
  • In addition to Loki being a shapeshifter (and potentially becoming a variant in part just by deciding to stay in a form other the one he's "supposed" to use), it's possible that someone or something even more powerful could force him into another form. It's possible all of the variants' forms are ones the "correct" Loki has been or will be at some point, voluntarily or not, and they just didn't (or couldn't) change back after being taken by the TVA.
  • Possibly there isn't only "one" timeline, but one "Sacred Timeline" which also encompasses some variant timelines that exist concurrently, at least until a nexus event is reached. Apparently the TVA doesn't always find these variations immediately, but only after some time has passed (centuries, in Classic Loki's case).
    • This makes a lot of sense, since the Avengers create and irrevocably change multiple branch timelines during the Time Heist, since returning the stones wouldn't have fixed Thanos just not being in 2014 anymore. In the series premier Ravonna confirmed that certain acts of time travel are part of the Sacred Script.

Illusion projections versus "Duplication Casting"

• Loki L1130 gives a technical sounding explanation of the difference between illusion projecting and "duplication casting". Is this just Technobabble or is there an actual difference in the powers, and if so what are they?
  • The way I understand it, it sounds like the illusions are just that: illusions, basically magically-generated holograms. They can't really interact with anything, because they aren't really there. Duplication Casting, on the other hand, sounds like it essentially creates hard-light projections of the caster, which are solid enough to touch things. Minor difference, but it's enough to technically qualify them as separate powers.
  • That might also finally explain how Loki faked his death so convincingly in Dark World, by using some kind of duplication casting to create a "body" for Malekith to stab and Thor to cradle rather than just projecting an illusion.

Loki's "gut you like a fish" threat

• Loki Variant L1130 threatens to gut TVA office worker Cassey "like a fish". Loki is surprised when Cassey doesn't know what a fish is. Why? Loki knows of fish because the Asgardians make frequent trips to Earth, particularly Scandinavia, but there's no indication that the TVA is staffed with humans and the MCU is full of Human Aliens. Shouldn't knowing about an Earth-specific clade of animals be the exception rather than rule and wouldn't a Sufficiently Advanced Alien like Loki that travels around various planets be aware of this?
  • "Fish" is just a generic term for chordate animals that live and swim in water. They're probably common, or even inevitable as an evolutionary predecessor, on any planet that evolves sapient life. I.e. any planet on which beings that can talk developed, probably also developed creatures that can be described as "fish". They're not an Earth-specific thing, they're very common on habitable planets across the galaxy, which is why Loki is surprised by someone who's not aware of them.
  • Also the TVA has been projecting themselves as extremely powerful and knowledgeable, so the fact that they would be ignorant of such basic things in the multiverse they are seeking to stabilize would be a bit surprising.
  • Episode 3 states that the TVA uses Variants with their memories wiped, so this would possibly be Foreshadowing that he doesn't remember something so basic.
  • It may even be a sign that Cassey's life was heavily involved with fish, since they had to completely obliterate his memory of fish when destroying his identity. Would not be surprised if he was a fisherman.

TVA employees - Not human, possibly spirits or different humans?

• If the TVA employees are Ambiguously Human, are they more likely to be spirits, gods or is it a case of Our Humans Are Different?
  • Sylvie explains that all TVA employees are Variants with their memories suppressed.

Time Keeper Are Above Infinity, Eternity, Death and Oblivion

• The Infinity Stones (IS) were created by Infinity, Eternity, Death and Oblivion. The IS only work in their native universe and therefore don't work on the TVA plain of existence. So does that mean that the Time Keepers are above Infinity, Eternity, Death and Oblivion in the cosmic hierarchy?
  • Depends on how the MCU adapts Infinity, Eternity, Death and Oblivion, but it seems like they are the ultimate power in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but not in whatever pocket dimension the TVA is in. So these cosmic forces are adjacent to, rather than below, the TVA. They could absolutely wreck TVA agents in the main Marvel Cinematic Universe if they were so inclined with anthropomorphic motivations like that.
  • Infinity, Eternity, Death and Oblivion are probably at the same power level as the Time Keepers, all of them controlled a cosmic aspect of the universe (infinity, eternity, death, oblivion and time), after all. Which probably means that the Infinity Stones are below the Time Keepers' power, and they created a place where the Infinity Stones' powers doesn't work.
    • Per episode four, the Time Keepers are revealed to be facade a la the Wizard of Oz. Given it seems the TVA involves a lot of smoke and mirrors, whoever runs it is probably nowhere near the level of abstract cosmic entities.

Loki Not Using Full Extent of His Powers

• In episode 3, Loki is shown to use a green energy blast from his hand and telekinesis powerful enough to stop a falling building and push it back into place. But if he has these powers, why didn't he just blast everyone out of his way, or use his TK to push everyone aside to make it to the Ark? In fact, Loki has ben shown to be able to teleport, so why didn't he just teleport to the Ark?
  • Why doesn't he just blast everyone out of his way, or use his TK to push everyone aside to make it to the Ark? That kind of physical magic probably uses up a lot of energy (since the force he needs to push people aside has to come from somewhere) so he can't overexert himself. Notice that he didn't use as much magic as before after he stopped the building. That probably used up most if not all of his reserves.
  • Why didn't he just teleport to the Ark? Like with Nightcrawler, he probably needs to see where he's going so he doesn't end up reappearing inside a wall.
  • That doesn't make sense as he could literally see the Ark from where he was. It was only like half a mile away. There's no way that he couldn't have at least teleport pass all the people to the front of the Ark and then either teleport inside or force his way in.
  • Maybe the TVA headquarters have a sort of weakening effect, that causes magic users to not be able to use their magic at its full potential for a few hours after exiting. Also, are you sure that Loki was the one who pushed that falling building back up?
  • Loki cannot teleport. It's all just a part of his illusion casting to make it look like he does. If he could teleport. If he had this ability, he would have A)Left the glass cage at any time in The Avengers (2012), and B)Gotten out of Thor's grasp when he threatened to hit him with his hammer while disguised as Odin in Thor: Ragnarok.
  • In episode 1 he teleported out of New York with the Tesseract to a desert half way across the planet.
    • Didn't he use the Tesseract for that? It’s the same effect has when Thanos used the stone. It doesn't mean he can teleport on his own.
  • MCU Loki indeed cannot teleport. Classic Loki could (creating a portal).

Loki's Super Strength

• What happened to Loki's Super-Strength? He's shown to nearly be a match with Thor several times, and can overpower Cap and an un-armored Tony with ease. It cannot be just the magic dampening of the TVA, as it doesn't return at Roxxcart or on Lamentis-1. The Minute Men do not have super strength, as they are just variants, who seem to mostly be human.
  • The timeline of the show is wonky (obviously), but its possible he is injured. This is all taking place shortly after the Battle of New York when Loki had the absolute stuffing pounded out of him.
    Hulk: Puny God.
  • Given TVA agents have captured Kree, Titan Eternals, and Vampires, it might be reasonable to assume they do have super strength or, at least, are able to dampen others' super-powers in a localized area. Sylvie, who also has half-Jötunn physiology, isn't rag-dolling the agents in any of her fights.

Loki Destroying the Tempad

• Loki used magic to hide the Tempad from Sylvie. Fine. But how did Loki getting thrown from that train destroy it? I mean, it wasn't actually on his person when he hide it, so how did it get so damaged?
  • I may need to watch the scene again more carefully but the pad may have simply been invisible. That way even if Sylvie found it, she couldn't use it as its touch screen.
  • I'd assumed he had the Tempad in that hidden magical space where he also kept the Tesseract, the blanket, the sheath, sometimes his daggers etc., and wondered about it being damaged, too.

The Poor Not Simply Taking The Ark

• Why didn't all the poor people who could not get on the Ark simply rush in a take over? I mean, there has to be more poor than there is rich, and even with guard, their sheer numbers should have been able to easily overwhelm them. And it also begs the question, why did the guards bother stopping the poor from getting on the Ark? How were the guards planning to get off planet? Or were they just so bound by their duty that they would be willing to die to protect the rich?
  • Because humans just don't do that. The slaves could have risen up and slaughtered most plantation owners. They rarely did. The victims of many concentration camps had the numbers to rush their guards. They rarely did. Humans are just not hardwired to rush armed authority figures, even when they know abstractly that the mass of them stand a good chance of winning. Our brains just don't work that way.
  • It looked like they were trying to, but they probably didn't have enough time/transportation/ability to organize to be able to pull it off effectively.
  • If you listen closely, it seems that the tickets are being given out in a what's presented as a fair system (only it isn't). That or they lied about (or genuinely miscalculated) how much time they had or room was on the ark. The people waiting in line seemed to think they would at some point be let on. Maybe they were letting people on until the last moment, or at least planned to. The ark doesn't high tail it out of there the moment things look bad after all. Remember we're privy to a lot of information (Lamentis being doomed with no survivors) that the people might not yet. We know next to nothing about this society.
  • As for the guards, who's to say their kids weren't granted passage on the Ark, in exchange for their too-poor-to-buy-tickets parents' volunteering to defend it to the bitter end?

Idiot police

• Why did the Lamentis-1 police go out of their way to attack Loki and Sylvie while the world was literally breaking apart?
  • A.) The Watsonian reason. The logic of riot control. If a riot is going on, and you are part of a group that controls riots, and you see people running towards something they're not supposed to run toward, you attack. B.) The Doylist reason. It would be a less dynamic climax to the episode if all the guards were background and the two leads ran into a straight line.
  • The guards' children may have been granted berths on the ark, on the condition that their parents stay behind and prevent anyone - local or alien - from interfering with it. Up until the ark got wrecked, those police thought they were in a You Shall Not Pass! situation, buying time for the vessel to launch.

Why take high profile variants to the Time Keepers for deletion?

• Why take high profile and dangerous variants like Loki L1130 and Sylvie to the Time Keepers for deletion instead of just doing it in an empty room and telling the less in the loop TVA staff that the Time Keepers were overseeing this? It adds unnecessary steps and security gaps, especially since rank and file TVA guards cannot accompany the Judge on a leg of the trip, and risks exposing the Time Keepers as window dressing for someone else.
  • From Ravonna's perspective, it might be a way of rubbing her victory in their faces—"yeah, you spent so much time looking for the Timekeepers for nothing, you stupid variants." She's not expecting Hunter B-15 to show up or the variants to escape their pruning. Disney villains tend to be big on pride going before a fall.
  • There does appear to be someone above Ravonna, who presumably uses the fake Timekeepers as their primary mouthpieces/interaction. So this entity wanted to talk to the Lokis, maybe recruit them or just get some information, and putting them in front of the supposedly all-important Timekeepers might awe them enough to get something useful. Yes there's a risk that they might discover the truth, but it's certainly better than putting them in a room with the actual leader of the TVA.
  • It was possibly for Mobius' benefit. His presence there was presented as a reward, and by the time he was pruned the visit was already in motion. It also fits the general "cult indoctrination" theme the TVA has going.

Why wait to grab Sylvie?

• If Sylvie being born a girl was the nexus point they were shutting down, why wait until she was school age (or Asgardian equivalent) to grab her? From her conversations with the main character Loki variant her life was already radically different from his. If that wasn't the Nexus point, why not?
  • Sylvie specifically asks Ravonna what her nexus event was as they're riding in the elevator—why she was picked up—and Ravonna says she doesn't remember. Whatever the nexus event happens to be, Sylvie being a girl isn't it.
  • We're also assuming that everything has to be exactly perfect to be considered part of the Sacred Timeline. We know that some variance is allowed; it's just when the variance energy reaches a certain point that it's too late to prevent a divergent timeline. And while even a minor deviation could be enough, that doesn't mean every minute deviation changes things. We see from the opening of the show that alternate takes from Endgame were used. The different dialogue and actions still resulted in the same outcomes. It was only when Loki escaped that a nexus event was confirmed. It's possible that Sylvie had the potential to go through everything and still be treated the same way with the same reactions. Whatever her nexus event was, it was likely something in that moment of playing with her toys; she is fantasizing about "saving" Asgard instead of ruling it. Or that was just when everything built up enough to hit the threshold. We could also find out that whomever is behind the TVA just targeted her specifically to set everything in motion just as it has been.
    • Episode 5 confirmed that it isn't immediate; Classic Loki survived thousands of years longer than the main timeline version and didn't attract TVA attention until he tried to leave his solitary exile.
    • "Solitary exile" is the key words to why Classic Loki didn't attract the TVA. After Thanos' attack, Classic Loki spend four millenia alone, nobody was aware he's still alive, and the Sacred Timeline is unaffected with him being alive because he apparently did nothing to attract the TVA's attention. Classic Loki was pruned when he grow lonely and decided to see if Thor was still alive, trying to reconect with him, which could've problematic if Loki's fate was him dying at Thanos' hands.
  • Since Loki is a shapeshifter, spending some time in a female form isn't out of the question (and certainly happened in real-world Norse mythology, since Loki is Sleipnir's mother). Since presumably Ravonna would remember if the nexus event was as obvious as being female, it's entirely possible that the "correct" Loki wore that form for a while, too (as shapeshifting practice, out of boredom, or some other reason). Sylvie may have just decided to keep that as her default form at some point after being taken by the TVA.

2050 heroes?

• What could be the state of the Avengers or powered people in general during the time? Such that there's nobody there to help and there are no survivors.
  • It may just be that no one knows. Earth could suffer a similar fate, and most of the galaxy wouldn't care or find out until too late. While we see that Lamentis-1 is technologically advanced, they may still not be intergalactic yet and not have faster-than-light communications.
  • If climate change in 2050 is as bad as it is projected to be in real life, the Avengers may be too busy with people across the country and the world to help with one small Alabama town.

How does killing variants fix the timeline?

• Sure, Loki wasn't supposed to escape, but he was supposed to survive and perform multiple actions crucial to the Sacred Timeline. Removing him doesn't fix that. In fact it makes things worse, since you can no longer, for example, drop Loki and the tesseract at Thor's feet, resulting in a bewildered Thor bringing Loki to Asgard and mostly fixing the timeline. The same goes for anyone who deviated from their destined behavior. Deleting Sylvie results in a timeline where Thor never undergoes his redemption arc, ultimately leading to no Avengers, and to Thanos winning. Unless their original destined behavior resulted in their almost immediate death, killing any variant fixes nothing, and would often make things much worse.
  • The TVA isn't grabbing Loki pre-escape, they're grabbing him post-escape. Like you said, he's supposed to stick around in his restraints, get carted off to Asgard with Thor, and sit in a jail cell during The Dark World. He's not supposed to grab the Tesseract and escape, which is where the TVA shows up after he lands in the desert. The TVA then resets the timeline to just before Loki's escape, so he can stick around in his restraints, get carted off to Asgard with Thor, etc., etc.
  • As for Sylvie, we don't know what her nexus event was, so we don't know what impact she has (if any) on Thor, or if Thor even exists in the timeline she's from.
  • The TVA arrests the variant for messing with their Sacred Timeline and then they Reset the timeline. Sylvie's timeline or the one they took the main character from were reset and don't exist anymore, apart from their pieces falling in the Void. The Variant who messed with that timeline gets taken through the TVA mock trial, probably screened as a potential worker, or in the majority of cases, pruned, going straight into the Void again. So the TVA doesn't "kill" variants or their timeline, they merely ship them off to the Void to be eaten by Alioth.
  • Basically, grabbing the variant is just a bit of pseudo-legal theatrics so that they can be found "guilty" and possibly recruited as TVA employees. The actual fix to the timelines are the reset charges. How they technically work is being left deliberately vague (probably because thinking too hard about them would create several pages worth of Headscratchers anyway) but they somehow allow time to "heal" itself and every element that needs to be there (including the people whose variants are arrested) are somehow restored in their proper place.

The sun will shine on us again, I guess

• Loki is devastated to learn about Frigga's death, demands to know where she is, is brought to tears over her fate... but he watches Thor sobbing over his prime self's body aboard Thanos' ship, with all signs pointing to The Bad Guy Wins, and—nothing? He doesn't think to ask if Thor made it? If his brother's doing okay after the deaths of his family, his friends, his planet, half his people, the Blip itself? Maybe somebody briefed him on the events of Infinity War/Endgame off-screen, but throughout the series, there's only off-handed references to the god of thunder. And I get that their relationship can be, uh, troubled, and the writers don't want to make it a Thor series, but... Loki does love his brother, right?
  • It could be that Loki doesn't want to give his captors anything ELSE to use against him, and so is keeping his feelings close to his chest. Frigga is... a very, VERY sore spot for him, one that, no matter how he tries, he can't hide (as we've seen, hearing about her death causes him to SNAP, and Odin praising him by saying she'd have been proud of him coaxes a smile out, no matter what else he may be thinking).
    • That would make sense for the first episode, while Loki is in captivity, but it never comes up at any time after that, when he and Mobius are on better terms. He never even brings it up to Sylvie. There's a few references to Thor here and there—Classic Loki missing his brother, Kid Loki killing his brother, Frog Thor, Loki muttering that he knows why that behaviour pisses Thor off now. But overall it feels weirdly like the brotherly bond we spent four movies (and part of a fifth) exploring is non-existent.
    • It's non-existent because this Loki came directly from 2012. Meaning, all the Character Development the Main-Loki experienced after the first Avengers movie, like the brotherly bond he and Thor ended forming, never happened to this Loki.
    • (And heck, setting aside Thor, isn't Loki at least slightly concerned that Thanos appears to be on track to win in his timeline before the tape runs out? No reaction of "oh crap, did Thanos get all the stones? What happened?" Even if he doesn't know about the Blip, he has to know that the Mad Titan is bad news, right?)
  • First off, keep in mind that the Battle of New York is still fresh in Loki's mind. Him and Thor were not in the best of places at this point in time. Yes, he loved hearing that Thor thought better of him but it doesn't immediately erase all the bitterness he had towards him at the time. In the Sacred Timeline it took until Ragnarok to get him to realize how much he cared for his brother and that was YEARS after the Battle of New York. Second, Thor making it after his death would be irrelevant to him. After all, if Loki had his way, that future should never happen. Pre-Character Development he would've just spent all his available time and effort at killing Thanos to avoid both his and Thor's death. Post-Character Development he was both way too caught up in what was happening to him currently, and things got so out of hand that what happened in Endgame is the least of his worries.

The choice in the finale

• How does it work as a choice in the finale between take over the TVA or kill He Who Remains? Why couldn't they do both? What was HWRs going to do if they agreed to take over? Stick around and show the ropes or retire to some other time?
  • Loki outright said it was a gambit, or an attempt at a Sadistic Choice. Realistically there were more choices they could've made which is why Loki wanted to talk it out with Sylvie and likely get more details if they could. But Sylvie being Sylvie didn't really care and wanted her vengeance, something He Who Remains was likely banking on. Either Sylvie does what she does and sets off the war (and if his theory holds, he ultimately just ends back up in the same spot) or Loki has to kill her or incapacitate her and is forced to accept the deal. Either way he gets what he wants. As for what he would do if they accepted, he pretty much said as much. They go back to the TVA to run it wholesale. He stays in his Citadel because he needs to stay isolated from the timeline to avoid any variants popping up but would just be doing it to relax or advise them from afar rather than having to keep a close eye on everything.
  • The choice does make a bit more sense if you think about the mechanisms for why the timeline was branching to begin with; While Loki and Silvi were confronting HWR, Mobius and B-15 were back at the TVA revealing the truth to all the agents, and Renslayer skipped town. With Renslayer gone and the agents knowing the truth, they stop working, which means branches aren't getting pruned. And once a branch passes a certain threshold it CAN'T be pruned anymore. So in reality Loki and Silvi did have a choice in front of them; to stop the timeline from branching they would need to rush back to the TVA immediately and get everyone working again, if they decide to stay and kill HWR they won;t be ble to stop the branches in time. They didn't have enough time to do both. Probably by design, HWR kept them talking for a while. He was stalling.

Killing He Who Remains

• Why does Sylvie killing He Who Remains cause all of the timeline branchs immediately? The TVA was still around and he didn't seem to be very hands-on to begin with to the point most of them didn't know he existed. Wouldn't they keep pruning any branching timelines without him?
  • Given he says he orchestrated everything that led to Loki and Sylvie reaching him, it could be he did somehow give directions to the TVA without them knowing it was him. Still, that wouldn't answer why killing him would immediately cause branching timelines, let alone variants of himself to appear.
  • There's some possible clues that seem to hint that it's not the death of HWR that triggers the branches, but Loki and Sylvie's kiss, as the ripples seem to hit the TVA even before the former is stabbed. The two getting together itself was previously hinted as being a major nexus event in episode 3.
  • I think the answer is actually simple; While Loki and Silvi were dealing with the giant reality eating cloud monster and confronting He Who Remains, Mobius and agent B-15 were busy revealing the dirty truth about the TVA to all the agents. With Renslayer gone and the agents clued in to the truth, of course they would stop pruning branches. And note that we see the branches begin to form on the timeline before he who remains is actually killed, before Loki and Silvi even begin fighting over whether to kill him. And remember that they specified earlier in the series that once a branch passed a certain thresh hold (represented by the red lines above and below the timeline) it could no longer be pruned. So in the end it wasn't really killing He Who Remains, in itself, that caused the timeline to branch, but Mobius and B-15 halting the work of the TVA; The real issue with the choice was likely that by choosing to kill He Who Remains, Loki and Silvi *wouldn't have time* to get back to the TVA to get them to stop the branching before they passed the point of no return.

Do TVA agents sleep?

• If the agents, minutemen and judges of the TVA are all variant humans, how do they find the time to sleep if they're constantly working?
  • They have easy access to time travel. All they have to do is punch out, sleep, then travel back to 30 seconds after they left. That's assuming they even need to sleep, given all the power at play in the TVA HQ.
    • Localized time travel within the TVA HQ doesn't appear to be possible. It seems to work on San Dimas Time.
  • The Law of Conservation of Detail is at work. They probably have sleeping quarters, but Loki doesn't see them because he has to sleep in a cell. As there doesn't appear to be daylight changes within the HQ, they probably sleep in shifts.
  • O.B. in the second season states he doesn't sleep because he's so busy, and he doesn't seem to be suffering from sleep deprivation, so they probably don't need to.
  • Supertech did it. The TVA has all kinds of crazy technology, presumably created by He Who Remains. It's not too crazy to think they've given their agents a few 50th-century health buffs, like not needing to sleep.

Classic Loki's costume

• If Classic Loki is a variant who survived the events of Infinity War, how did he end up wearing a Cheap Costume version of what he usually wears? How did he end up in his current outfit, and shouldn't he be wearing his clothes from Ragnarok?
  • Maybe in his timeline, all the characters wore comic accurate outfits.
  • He wasn't pruned until decades after Infinity War. Most likely his old clothing from Ragnarok has long since rotted away, and he had to make due with some new ones.
    • If Loki's "Give or take 5000 years" quip is any indication as to how long an Asgardian or Jotun can be expected to live, Classic Loki must be ancient. And he has spent most of that insanely long lifetime on a lifeless planet. He might just have been that drained by the time he put the new costume together.

Lamentis Nexus Event

• Referring to the events in episode 4, how exactly is Loki and Silvi forming a connection with each other enough to cause a Nexus Event that the TVA would take notice of? This makes no sense with the rules the show already established; a Nexus Event is something that alters the course of a timeline away from it's predetermined path, how on earth is Loki and Silvi coming to an emotional epiphany with each other something that branches the timeline? They haven't actually changed anything about the sequence of events occurring around them, and it doesn't make sense that just thinking something different would cause a deviation worth pruning, especially when they are in the middle of a apocalypse and on the verge of dying, and it was established that creating a branch in that situation is next to impossible. It can't be that their emotional mental change is a nexus event because it "would have" led them to change things, because we see that events are not detected until the change actually occurs, and nothing TANGIBLE has actually changed. Maybe they want to imply that a Loki changing at all is so monumental that it creates its own nexus waves or something, but that still makes no sense if its not a change that alters the timeline around him. In the end it just comes off as blatant Deus Ex Machina
  • Given He Who Remains stated he basically set everything up so that Loki and Sylvie would meet with him, could it be that the "Nexus Event" wasn't real, i.e. it was really He Who Remains making the TVA detect one so that they would go and rescue the two?
  • It's entirely possible that it's simply not a Nexus event as we understand it. Rather than potentially creating a divergent timeline, two variants of the same being falling in love with each other might screw with the entire concept of the Sacred Timeline so spectacularly that the TVA registers it as a Nexus event. It seems like a massive Ass Pull, yes, but it was also something completely unprecedented in-universe, so they might just be using the language available to them to describe it because they don't know any other way to do so.

The Marvel Multiverse vs. Loki (2021)

• So if "the Sacred Timeline" is supposed to be the only timeline, how come it's still part of the greater Marvel Multiverse? It's been given it's own designation, Earth-199999 (yes, I know Mysterio calls it Earth-616 but he was also lying his ass off the whole time), meaning that it is 100% definitely within the Marvel Multiverse so why does the TVA believe there's only the one timeline? Has He Who Remains been lying to them (well, more than he was already lying to them) or does even he think that "the Sacred Timeline" is the only timeline out there?
  • All multiverse shenanigans happen after Loki, which happens after Avengers Endgame from the perspective of the Sacred Timeline (i.e., the Avengers must have done the Time Heist in order to create that Loki variant). Time is not necessarily linear, as we see in the series finale, the multiverse grew extremely quickly from every point in time and space that it doesn't look like a "timeline" at all. It could be argued, then, that the greater Marvel Multiverse retroactively came into existence after He Who Remains was killed.
  • Adding to the above point, it's entirely possible the multiversal war between the Kang variants hasn't happened yet from the perspective of the rest of the multiverse. Plus technically Earth-199999 was destroyed by an incursion at some point as Secret Wars (2015) has the last incursion involved Earth-616 and Earth-1610 but was presumably rebuilt by the Fantastic Four, and before that was visited off-panel by the Young Avengers. Like the above point time isn't linear and the exact order all these events take place for the multiverse is impossible to get straight.
  • Or each universe within the multiverse has its own distinct "Sacred Timeline", possibly with a TVA or equivalent agency/entity/force to maintain it, or possibly just unfolding in isolation, if there's no Time Travel to mess with events in that particular universe. In which case, it could well be that Loki wound up in a pre-existent parallel universe's TVA - maybe even that of the new-Phase Conqueror-Kang we've been waiting for - rather than an altered version of his own. (Only problem is, the comics have specified that there is one TVA that has jurisdiction over the entire multiverse, with each new timeline causing a new desk and a new employee to spontaneously pop into existence and start monitoring it.)
  • The easiest way to reconcile this is to assume that there's more than one multiverse in a greater omniverse, with the Comics Multiverse differing from the MCU Multiverse. Both versions have some overlap, like a version of the MCU taking place within the comics multiverse and existing as its own separate universe as Earth-199999, but multiversal events in one doesn't effect the other, so the mechanics and events can be different without worrying about trying to tie everything together.

Wrong number earth

• After finishing Loki's file in the first episode, a Freeze-Frame Bonus, mentions it as the file of Loki Laufeyson, Earth-616. Except it has been repeatedly said that the MCU is Earth-1999999, and that Mysterio claiming that it was 616 in Far From Home was a Mythology Gag that also was one of the many clues that he was lying. How can this be?
  • Because he's a Variant, from a different timeline (now extinct). The TVA's numbering system is likely entirely different from what was used in the comics because the extra timelines aren't supposed to exist for long, so that timeline being labeled 616 is just another Mythology Gag. In-universe, the number is completely incidental.
  • Thoroughly Jossed by multiple sources including the series finale of this very show. Earth-616 is the Sacred Timeline. Earth-616 is the MCU. The comics and the live-action films definitively take place in different multiverses. (If it's canon that Spiderverse Miles Morales is from Earth-616B, it could be compatible with the comics canon, but not the MCU, since Miguel refers to Earth-199999, not Earth-616C or Earth-616M or whatever. Also, in the Spiderverse, your art style doesn't change when you cross universes, but you do in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.) This means the MCU is allowed to do whatever it wants and never has to be dragged into an incomprehensible mess of a cross-medium Crisis Crossover event. It's simpler this way.

Is this still considered a variant if... ?

• If one guy’s variant from an another universe was born a month later than him, and both the variants have the same parents and get the same name, are they still considered variants? Even though his appearance will not likely be the same due to the different time of insemination?
  • No Way Home confirmed that someone from a different universe who's a completely different person who lived an almost completely different life is basically considered a variant as long as they essentially have the same identity, or in other words "play the same character" in their version of the world. Although in different timelines of the same universe as we see in Loki, the scenario you described would simply be their parents having a different kid instead, so that person would technically be more of a sibling than a direct variant. Although, it's not even entirely clear if the alternate Peter Parkers could be considered direct variants either if being genetically a different person is taken into account in that case. Alternate timelines and alternate universes seem to follow different rules so it's hard to say.

Can universes also be created by mutliversal travels?

• If someone travels from universe 1 to universe 2, is this universe 2 created by the traveler from the moment he arrived or did universe 2 always existed like all the other universes?
  • Those were different universes rather than different time lines.

Sylvie’s divergence

• What was it?
  • As of now, it's deliberately left vague, as Ravonna doesn't care to remember. While her being the Goddess of Mischief is the most obvious Nexus Event, the TVA would probably have shown up the second she was born. Another possibility is that since she knew early on as a child that she was adopted, she would have grown into a much more stable and morally sound Loki, when Loki being insecure and as a result lashing out at the universe is a pretty big component of the Sacred Timeline, since it literally results in the Avengers forming.

Was the Sacred Timeline really crucial?

• So, the reason for why He Who Remains created the TVA and ruthlessly maintains a singular timeline, with any divergence immediately purged from existence, is to prevent variants of himself from existing and causing a multiversal war that threatens all reality. Okay, makes sense. But then, if the variants of one person is the real problem, why not just have the TVA focus on killing them? Or better yet, preventing those variants from discovering alternate universes? Why keep reality to a single timeline and actively police the lives of every single person in existence and all their variants, when it seems you only need to police the variants of He Who Remains? Sure, a single timeline is much easier to keep track of, and said timeline is where (when?) He Who Remains has no variants to begin with. But still, it seems you can have multiple timelines existing and allow divergences to occur, leaving those people and their variants in peace. There's no reason to have the TVA dictating the lives of every single person in reality, purging countless men, women, and children for any slight divergence like being late for work, when it's just the variants of a single individual who are the only danger to reality.
  • It seems like the only way to keep everything in check was to create a single timeline. If the timeline were allowed to branch then those branches would themselves branch exponentially until there's too many for the TVA to manage.
  • If someone is dangerous enough to the entire multiverse, and you just deal with it by using time travel to kill them, you're not really dealing with the problem, just creating a branched timeline where the guy was killed. They'll still be alive in the other branch, to threaten the entire multiverse again. The pruning the TVA does seem to be more complete, erasing the timeline completely and purging it from the multiverse.
  • Maybe the only Nexus Events they need to prune are the ones that branch out from before and during Kang's lifetime. If a Variant comes from after Kang is already dead/turned into HWR, the new universe they create can't contain another Kang. This is somewhat Jossed by Season 2, in which [[spoiler: it's revealed that the Loom was designed to acommodate the Sacred Timeline and the Sacred Timeline only.

He Who Remains Was More Powerful Than Literal Gods?

• According to He Who Remains, all Kang "variants" were more or less genius but otherwise unexceptional scientists on Earth in the 31st century that were the first to figure out that the multiverse existed, or at the very least, the first ones to actually do something useful with this knowledge, made contact with all other versions of themselves, and soon enough, were brought into a multiversal war with each other, that only ended when one of them weaponized a literal universe eating monstrosity against all of the other ones and basically made it so that his universe and his alone was basically the only one left to prevent any other copy of him from being created and bring the whole thing full circle, and to do this he essentially becomes to what amounts as the god of the new universe, complete with a time agency and everything. Now the issue for me is when it's shown that, even in the 21st century, there are numerous other alien races and cosmic beings that are far more advanced than humanity, who would presumably follow a similar technological progression, yet they (supposedly) never got to the level as Kang by himself essentially, and when the multiverse war broke out, the only ones worth mentioning in the conflict was Kang and essentially copies of himself. (along with what armies they may have employed against each other) Basically, in a setting chock-full of Physical Gods, Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, and Eldritch Abominations, how was some intelligent, but not even that exceptional, Earth scientist in the 31st century able to essentially become God of the Marvel Multiverse? Is this just an example of taking the comic book tendency of Humans Are Special to it's logical conclusion? And if 31st century human tech is powerful enough to allow something like this to happen, then I can only wonder what 41st century tech is capable of.
  • Multiversal travel seemingly includes time travel. That would allow Kang to get technology, information or magitech from any place, time or dimension, getting him what he needs to deal with any threat.

Loki not getting recognised in the final episode

• In the final episode Mobius doesn't recognise Loki and asks what department he's from. Wouldn't the TVA still have dealt with Loki variants in the new timeline and recognise him despite his uniform?
  • Maybe in this timeline, the case of variant Loki wasn't handled or even mentioned to Mobius, therefore Mobius wouldn't know that specific Loki variant
  • Answered in 2x01: Loki actually returned to the TVA in the past (despite Mobius's repeated insistence that there's no such thing and time doesn't flow linearly in the TVA), before he and Mobius met. This incident has been wiped from Mobius's memory.

Loki's Healing Factor

• In The Avengers, Loki gets slammed around like a rag doll by Hulk, hard enough to smash up a concrete floor, but is up and walking minutes later. He's a god, so Healing Factor is obviously at play. So why is there still a visible gash on his arm from a sword fight hours earlier?
  • It's more likely that some degree of Super-Toughness is in play instead of a Healing Factor, considering he also took an explosive arrow to the face and was thrown through a window before the Hulk's rag doll slam. In that case, he'd still need time to heal when hit by something that can actually pierce his skin.

Timeslipping in Episodes 7 and 11

• In "Science/Fiction," Loki timeslips around the TVA and sees his future self looking at something on a desk. However, in "Ouroboros," Loki asked Ouroboros to make a Temporal Aura Extractor in the past, cutting to Ouroboros in the present suddenly gaining memories of that request. The clear implication is that Loki's timeslipping changes the past and leads to a different future. This is inconsistent with the minor bootstrap paradox in "Science/Fiction." However, the rules must be different for timeslipping into the future, as clearly demonstrated by the boostrap paradox in "Heart of the TVA."
  • Did the timeslipping rules change after the Loom melted down? Can future Loki being seen be explained with the old rules?
  • It's probably that Loki timeslipped to the future, just like in episodes 7 and 9 when he runs into Sylvie in the elevator. Also, we are following the Loki who timeslipped a few moments into the future.
  • The time travel rules are wildly inconsistent this season, particularly when it comes to timeslipping. It's better to think of it as in Doctor Who, not stress over the details and just accept that the rules are whatever the writers need to move the plot on.

Unrealistic Recognition at the Nadir of Race Relations

• How did Victor Timely, a black man in 1893, gain any recognition as a scientist during an era of intense bigotry?
  • Reality Is Unrealistic. Majors based his acting on a black scientist from that era; I don't remember who.
  • There were a number of black inventors in that era and ironically independent black researchers, scientists, and entrepreneurs, tended to fair better than those attempting to work in institutional, mainstream, settings. History is a complicated beast, and never as simple as it is often made out to be. Note, also, that Timely was being heckled and hustled by white "investors" out to steal his inventions. That is also historically consistent too.

Magic Dampeners at the TVA

• So, magic doesn't work at the TVA because of "magic dampeners" (per OB, Episode 204). How did Loki manage to rip the blast shields open telekinetically in the last episode?
  • OB mentioned them because they were being turned off. Loki ripping the blast shields open only happens a few minutes later (from the timeline's perspective, not Loki's) so it's fair to assume they just weren't brought back online yet.

Can Loki leave?

• Can Loki ever leave his throne for any given amount of time (let's say a few hours) or does he have stay seated constantly just to maintain the multiverse's stability?
  • Until stated otherwise, yes.
  • Considering it took several days for time to break when the temporal loom broke, it seems that Loki could take breaks if he wanted but would need to make them short/infrequent.

What in the flying fuck is "raw time?"

Ouroboros explains the Temporal Loom as where "raw, unrefined time is refined into physical timeline." Uuuuuh...what? What is "raw time" and why does it need to be continuously refined? Is it because the Sacred Timeline happens "again and again and again" and that's why there are Variants? The whole idea of time being raw energy and needing to be refined is clearly bunk. Also, how did HWR manage to bind the multiverse to the Loom and keep everything in check, to the point where the Loom has to exist for anything else to also exist? There's no way in hell or heaven the multiverse was that fragile before Kang came along. Was HWR powerful enough to edit the fundamental fabric of everything? Because that's fucking terrifying.

"Place in the Timeline"

Much is made throughout Season 2 of TVA personnel wanting/getting "their place in the timeline back". We even see Brad apparently having done so. Except, how can that be possible when the TVA staff are all VARIANTS? They all come from pruned timelines. Another version of them would still exist on the Sacred Timeline, having never branched. So why are they all suddenly acting as if they were maliciously snatched from the Sacred Timeline itself?

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