these are all very good reasons that it would be dumb, yeah, and more rational ones than my kinda knee-jerk “but I don’t want any Loki to be evil because that makes me sad :(” reaction.
what you pointed out does make me feel a bit better about them not going that route, though, mostly because I felt like episode 4 did have at least one significant payoff for something that major portions of fandom were yelling about all along while more casual viewers weren’t picking up on it: namely, the clearly authoritarian TVA being…you know…bad. I mean I certainly saw some people on Tumblr going “well duh, they’re obviously evil, why would the creators make a soul-crushing bureaucracy with propaganda like that if they didn’t also intend the organization to be bad” but I still think it was completely reasonable to worry that the creators didn’t realize, given that general viewers (and less-casual-but-not-fannish reviewers who…really should’ve known better) all seemed to be going “okay cool they’re time cops and they don’t like Loki, obviously they are Good Guys”, and a lot of the interviews also seemed to support the assumption that they were basically the good guys doing something necessary, and Marvel doesn’t have the best track record on this type of thing (see: nobody in canon pointing out the most important reasons the Sokovia Accords were a bad idea, nobody in canon giving actual reasons for why Thanos’s plan was evil bullshit rather than maybe kind of a bad thing with some potentially good consequences, all the other totally unnecessary unfortunate implications from everything Thanos did in IW actually, Karli in FatWS somewhat randomly killing people because she had to be Bad and her actual goals were so blatantly good, etc.). and even though it was really really clear to a lot of us from the jump that the TVA’s goals and methods were both Not Good, and we got more evidence for that throughout the first 3 episodes, episode 4 was the one where it became inescapably obvious, including having Mobius explicitly tell Loki, “You were right about the TVA from the beginning.”
so…the showrunners knew what they were doing with the TVA even if general audiences inexplicably didn’t pick up on it, is what I’m saying, which would make it even more weird to do something with Loki that would so clearly contradict something the show itself has gone out of its way to establish, which makes me think they aren’t going to do that.
on the other hand, this post makes some good points about why the showrunners, at least, might consider it to be a reasonable approach to take, which is what has me worried because, yeah, I can see it even if it’s also contradictory.
on the other other hand, a Loki ficwriter I follow on Twitter (I don’t think they have a Tumblr) wrote a thread a few days ago proposing the same general theory but coming at it from an angle that actually…makes me hate it a whole lot less? for ease of reading, I’ll just paste all the relevant parts in here:
Okay, so I have a theory based on what we’ve seen so far and I don’t care whether it will pan out because I like it too much. … My presumption is that the Sylvie/Loki is more about general self-love than about a usual romantic relationship, just so you know. …[and] I see all Lokis as genderfluid no matter what gender they currently present. Argue with a wall. …
So, there are several things about the series that together form, narratively speaking, an interesting picture:
1. In the first episode, it is established that Loki’s role on the sacred tl is… not very enviable and one that paints them in a very negative light.
2. In the second episode, Sylvie claims that “this is not about you” (which narratively tells me that this IS about Loki and seriously, the series is literally named after the character)
3. In ep3 and 4, we learn that Sylvie might have been more accepted and happy than Loki, thus possibly more self-accepting (and thus not acceptable for the TVA?). Maybe even the fact that she’s presenting female made her a variant
4. Sylvie and Loki caring for each other caused a catastrophic nexus event that could destroy the TVA. Now THAT’s interesting, isn’t it? And of course, you could say that despite all the queerbaiting, Marvel in the end wants to save the world with a het couple again, blahblah, except I don’t really think that’s it this time. 1. they can’t be het if they’re not cis 2. their love is transgressive in any case – Mobius even says so (and the twitter timeline (haha) certainly says so - “selfcest” and all that).
5. The scene with Sif drove home that point again - Loki being alone, deserving to be alone, hating himself in truth etc. Mobius repeats the theme by posing him the question “Do you think you deserve to be alone?” And he thinks that the answer to that is decisive. Yay, it’s about Loki’s self-hate again.
6. Well, and then we get to the villain who hides behind puppets. Who, now who might that be? Hehe. Who else?
This might be a major spoiler if my theory pans out but it would fit the current Marvel story OH so well. Remember that Loki rune symbol for the o in Loki they use? Doesn’t it kinda look similar to the hourglass symbol we see in the chamber of the timekeepers? A lot so? EXACTLY!
But why would a literal god of chaos build something like a sacred timeline, you ask? Well, what do we know about the Loki who goes down the violent path? They’re scared and they are isolated and they absolutely LOATHE themselves. They’re definitely their own worst enemy. Wouldn’t it be in-character for such a Loki to ensure a timeline where they meet an undignified, pathetic, lonesome end? A Loki so consumed by self-hate they prune all “better” versions of themselves?
It would integrate well into the Marvel phase of
a. creating plot and “villains” out of trauma
b. making the major plot arc about accepting yourself and dealing with trauma
And it would be a beautiful connection to the very important comic Loki story arc Agent of Asgard that is basically exactly that: Traumatised King Loki attempts to traumatise young Loki into becoming themselves.
The solution there is to shed the need for outside validation (ego death) and to accept and love oneself fully (they hug and kiss king Loki on the forehead). By that, AoA-Loki escapes their own “sacred timeline” and makes space for something new, the god(dess) of stories.
Narratively, it would be a wonderful character development arc - Loki in the past was always held back by their self-hate and could, at the end of season 1, be ready to begin unfolding their true potential (as promised by Mobius in ep4). Narratively, it would tie the story together nicely, telling us why the whole series was called Loki to begin with, and why despite/because of Sylvie’s words, it definitely IS about Loki. Everything about it is. From the beginning to the end.
so yeah, I would still very much prefer for the Big Bad to be pretty much anyone except Loki, and if it really has to be Loki, for it to be one of the Lokis played by somebody else (I was thinking Richard E. Grant as King Loki but it uh…sure doesn’t seem that way after episode 4). but if they took this approach, where President Loki (probably) is behind all of this for the very simple reason that he hates all versions of himself that much, then…it could work. done well, I wouldn’t hate it. it would still be rooted in empathy/sympathy for Loki’s pain, which for me is the most important thing for the show to get right, and it could even be connected to Thanos-related trauma, with a Loki who just really internalized this message from a few different sources.
now, again, I would prefer…something else. I’m not actually sure how they would do something else, because if we haven’t met the Big Bad yet, it doesn’t really seem like there’s time to introduce a brand-new one. I guess that still leaves the option of like…well, something sort of like the first Avengers movie, really, where Loki and Sylvie take down the power structure of the TVA without ever finding out who or what, exactly, is behind it, and that question ends up being kicked down the road to Dr. Strange 2 and/or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (where Kang is actually slated to appear), although that seems…somewhat less likely, given that unlike in Avengers, the characters already know somebody else is pulling the strings, and as I understand it WandaVision and FatWS set a precedent of being pretty self-contained. I suppose potentially you could also do something a bit more like WandaVision, where Loki’s pain and self-hate just kinda…started all this without his conscious direction and it quickly spread beyond his control, but that would probably be harder to pull off in this context.
and frankly I’d still prefer something that isn’t totally resolved, or for that matter a complete ass-pull of a villain, in large part because…even if this was done well, successfully adapting the premise of AoA to this specific context, it’s like…part of my relief about the TVA being rotten was like, okay cool, casual viewers now have to recognize that Loki was right and the TVA was wrong, he wasn’t the villain just because everyone’s used to assuming that and the TVA weren’t the good guys just because they act like cops and Loki ran afoul of them, and also hello the extremely powerful authoritarian organization is bad and it’s not a terrible idea to be a teensy bit more wary of propaganda and powerful authoritarian organizations in real life. if it turns out that a Loki created the TVA, even if he did so from a place of trauma and self-loathing on a cosmic scale and the solution was explicitly for Loki to forgive, accept, and love himself, I am pretty fucking sure that a sizable portion of the general audience will go “ohhhh okay, the TVA weren’t bad because they were authoritarian, they were bad because they were Loki, yes, this all checks out and fits my preconceived notions” and I’m sure I don’t need to explain how goddamn frustrating that would be.
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