Who’s the REAL Villain of ‘Loki’?
After Loki‘s third episode, I think it’s become clear to nearly everybody by now that Loki’s female variant, “Sylvie,” isn’t the show’s main villain after all.
The first two episodes seemed to show the opposite, though: Sylvie had traveled through multiple time periods to destroy TVA minutemen, displaying the TVA as the story’s heroes trying to stop evil variants from creating branch timelines. While Sylvie isn’t fully justified in her previous actions, Episode 3 poses the valid theory that the Timekeepers are the real Big Bads of Loki.
Rewind the story a bit: in the first episode, Miss Minutes told Loki in an explanation video that the Timekeepers created all of the TVA agents to form the Time Variance Authority to protect the “sacred timeline” they had created and that they wove some time threads together to form what they called the “sacred timeline.” And all of the TVA agents believe that! They’re seemingly blind to the truth that Sylvie had revealed to Loki on Lamentis-1.
But apparently, the TVA agents are all… variants! They weren’t all created by the Timekeepers, but instead they had pasts as normal humans before fighting for the TVA. This is a totally different plotline uncovered as Hunter C-20 used to be only a margarita-loving girl, while Mobius may have been a jet ski rider and Ravonna Renslayer a principal/teacher. However, all of the TVA’s members were brainwashed so that they wouldn’t have any memories of their old lives. Like Wanda mind-controlling all of the Westview citizens in WandaVision, the Timekeepers may have done a similar thing to the TVA agents by making them think that everything is totally fine about their new daily lives.
With this new revelation brought about by Sylvie in Episode 3, the Timekeepers’ villainous secrets may slowly be getting uncovered throughout future episodes of Loki: other variants could also be realizing the truth and plotting to destroy the three virtually all-powerful “lizards.” Could the TVA also know the true intentions of their rulers? Ravonna Renslayer may also stand out from the rest, being the only known one able to talk in-person to the Timekeepers. That Kang-like statue keeps catching my eye…
The Timekeepers pulling some random timelines together to make the sacred timeline whatever they want it to be isn’t my ideal idea of a perfect multiverse, using the TVA’s mascot Miss Minutes to tell both the variants and agents lies. In fact, all of these variants creating branch timelines may actually be the Loki storyline’s heroes! The TVA are basically slaves to the Timekeepers, so the agents pruning unwanted timelines are likely doing this at the Timekeepers’ orders. But remember that the TVA and the Timekeepers have authority over all time, hence their motto, “For All Time. Always!” The small duo of Sylvie and Loki can’t take on an entire powerful body of three that can shape timelines in whatever way they want and fight against an organization where magic and even Infinity Stones don’t work at all. So, will other variants come in to help? King Loki, Kid Loki, regular Loki (Tom Hiddleston’s Loki), and Sylvie could all team up in an epic group of Lokis! Not too bad, right..?
