What Nexus Event Did Sylvie Create?


After Loki‘s fourth episode, a major question remains: What was Sylvie’s Nexus event? Sylvie must have created a serious Nexus event to have been abducted by the TVA at such a young age, and while the answer has not yet been directly given, a few clues in the episode point to the TVA’s reason for taking a seemingly innocent little girl hostage. There was probably no Nexus event at all! 

So why arrest Sylvie for no reason? The Time Variance Authority found variants on the run by looking at a timeline monitor, watching carefully for a branch timeline to appear, meaning there would be a Nexus event creating the branch. Sylvie had told Loki that she had unintentionally started Nexus events everywhere she went, sending off an alarm which dispatched TVA minutemen always chasing her…until she discovered that apocalypses were safe places to hide (because that timeline would get destroyed in the end anyway). In this same explanation to Loki, Sylvie admitted that she’s “not supposed to exist” – the biggest clue to the real reason why she was taken captive – posing the theory that the TVA may have apprehended her just because of her existence.

Leaving variants on the run and wreaking havoc across the Timekeepers’ Sacred Timeline would lead to madness in the multiverse, which is why the TVA were created. Loki, being the original Loki and initially following his set destiny to die in Infinity War, was never arrested by the TVA, but Sylvie, a variant of the original Loki and someone who would be a danger to the TVA’s purpose, was arrested simply for her existence. Trying to free other variants as she screams, “Help him!” to a struggling man held hostage by a minuteman, she’s courageous and compassionate by nature – the opposite of the TVA’s unreasonable actions of capturing random people sometimes because of nothing or a small thing – and not how the TVA desire all people to be. The Time Variance Authority treat themselves as the ultimate power and authority in the universe and want everybody to act submissive to them. Or, in Miss Minutes’ words, “Clean your own clock!”

Another hint to the fact that Sylvie didn’t commit any branch timeline-starting action to get the TVA’s attention is that she had sincerely questioned Renslayer in the elevator to the Timekeepers what her Nexus event was. Wondering why she had been captured so early in her life, Sylvie craves the answer to her abrupt arrest, but Renslayer replies that she can’t remember; this could be a cover-up for the reality that there was no Nexus event in the first place. Saying she can’t recall would still fault Sylvie since there was still a nexus event that was just too long ago to keep in mind anymore.

Why the Sacred Timeline Isn’t Sacred After All

Think about it: the Sacred Timeline hasn’t existed since the beginning of time, but it’s instead made up of some random time threads that the Timekeepers chose to weave together whenever the three beings (or should I say androids) were created. After putting these strings together, the Timekeepers consecrated them and made them into what they called the “Sacred Timeline,” passing the legend down to the TVA and making the agents believe that they were created by the Timekeepers to hide the truth that they are actually variants stolen from their original lives. Sacred? Not really… a single timeline constructed by mindless robots isn’t exactly supposed to be revered!

The Timekeepers are also the ones ordering the minutemen to prune certain unwanted branch timelines, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that all branch timelines are bad. These timelines are reset at the order of these machines just because they don’t fit the flawed desire of the TVA’s big boss and not because they are a true threat to life. Some of these branches are actually good, such as Sylvie’s happy Asgardian life, and not all variants are harmful at all: although the TVA make variants look like villains, some are actually helpful and are modestly living their lives in the only timeline they’ve ever known – the one they were born in.

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