I have to talk about the pie room scene between Sylvie and Loki in 2x4, because I can't tell you how much I loved that scene between them and I have thoughts, so many thoughts.
Obviously these are all just my own opinions and interpretation of the scene, I'm not here to tell anyone else how they should interpret it themselves, just sharing my own thoughts.
What I love about this scene is how it shows just how much Loki has grown over the course of the Loki series. But I also love what it says about Sylvie's character development, which is just as important. I'm going to break this up into sections to hopefully make it a little easier to follow.
Doing What's Hard.
I want to start with the part where Sylvie confesses that she couldn't kill Victor and why she couldn't kill him, because this was really interesting to me. If we remember back to 1x6 when Sylvie is about to kill He Who Remains, she asks him if he is going to beg for his life. In that moment it seemed to me almost like she wanted him to beg, she wanted to see his fear, for him to be afraid of her. I think this is because of the fear she felt constantly being hunted by the TVA, she felt afraid for so long and that was because of He Who Remains. So now she wants him to feel that same fear, to know what he put her through for all those years. It really reminds me of what Loki says to Mobius in ep 1 about not enjoying hurting people but doing it because he felt he had to in order to keep up the illusion, the trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear, or as Mobius puts it, a desperate play for control. In that moment Sylvie wanted control over He Who Remains.
It's interesting then that when she comes face to face with his variant, its Victor's fear that stops her from killing him. Because in that moment seeing his fear, seeing him talk about how he isn't He Who Remains, hasn't made the same choices as HWR and can make his own choices, reminds Sylvie so much of herself and how if she did kill Victor she wouldn't be any better than HWR. But I also think seeing Victor's fear reminded her that he was human. To her HWR was the monster who had destroyed her home, killing her family and people and who hunted her down her whole life. The fact that he didn't show any fear only cemented that image in her head. But Victor was afraid, he was human.
Yet in this moment we can see that Sylvie is doubting her decision to spare him, she thinks it makes her weak, which I think is why Loki tells her the story about Thor and how Loki mocked him for being 'soft' when he returned to Asgard. I think he tells her this story to show her that he understands how she feels because he too used to think that being 'soft', showing mercy, caring and trusting in others, is a weakness. We know Sylvie feels like being these things is a weakness because she says, 'soft gets you killed.' She has had to harden up over the eons she's been hunted in order to survive, so it makes sense that she thinks this way.
After she says this Loki reassures her by reminding her that by sparing Victor she also saved the remaining branches and all the lives exsisting on them. What I love about this moment is that Sylvie doesn't need to say that she feels weak for sparing Victor, Loki just knows that is how she is feeling and also knows just what to say to get through to her, he's basically telling her, you're not soft, or weak, you did a hard thing and spared more than just Victor's life in the process.
The next moment I want to talk about comes directing after this one. Realising how much faith Loki is putting in OB, Casey and Victor, Sylvie looks confused. She seems to be figuring out why Loki would trust them. I don't think she is judging him for his faith though, I think she is trying to understand it. The TVA has, needless to say, traumatised Sylvie and hurt her deeply. But the thing that helped Sylvie and Loki bond in season 1 was that the TVA had also hurt Loki, it was their mission to bring down this organisation that had ruined both their lives that brought them together. Sylvie is really struggling to trust the TVA and so she wants to understand why Loki does. She reminds him about Dox, and how those billion of lives lost were the fault of the TVA. Again this makes sense because in ep 2 Loki told her that the TVA was the only defence for the branches and yet it was a member of the TVA that pruned them, which only deepened Sylvie's mistrust of the TVA. She believes its too corrupt to fix.
But once again Loki knows exactly what to say, pointing out that there are branches that still survive and that is because of Mobius, B-15, OB and Casey who are all part of the same TVA but who are fighting to protect those lives.
I really enjoyed the push and pull between them both in this scene and how it leads into the conversation about burning things down being easy and that trying to fix what's broken is hard, hope is hard. I loved that part of their conversation. You can see that it really does get Sylvie thinking, that she's listening to Loki and actually taking in his words and considering them.
But she still has a lot of mistrust that has to be worked through. Hope is a very foreign concept to her and again that comes down to her past, if she had relied on hope in the past she never would have survived. She survived by relying on herself. So this idea of giving up control and instead relying on hope, relying on others, is very scary to her, its hard for her. But she is still willing to hear Loki out and so she asks about what they are going to do with Victor, are they really going to show him all of this then just send him home. But I do think Sylvie gets a little triggered by Loki's response of we can watch him and protect him as she sees this as 'interfering for good'. It's too close in her eyes to what the TVA was doing before. Always watching and always guarding, controlling how others live their lives.
It's interesting to me that at this moment Loki gets frustrated with her, up until now he's been calm and collected and responded to her viewpoint reasonably. But it's here that he gets frustrated, his tone gets a little more heated and he also looks and moves away from her. I do think there is a reason why he gets frustrated at this particular moment, but I am going to talk about that a little bit later on.
Loki is of the view that you can't just give people freewill and walk away, that it doesn't work that way. In an idealistic world maybe, but in the real world its not that simple or easy. I think some of Loki's frustration comes from the fact that Sylvie was the one that caused the branches to be freed, she is the one that wants the branches to be protected and says she cares about the lives on those branches, yet whenever he asks for help she seems reluctant to help, it seems to him like she just wants to walk away from the responsibility, from doing the hard part.
But I don't necessarily think that is true, I don't think she wants to walk away because its too hard, I just don't think she trusts the TVA, she is struggling to see the TVA as the solution and as this protector like Loki does.
We Are Gods
As I said above one of the great things about this whole scene is the way it shows just how far Loki has come and how much he has grown as a character. I think one of the things that shows just how much he has changed is the conversation they have about how they have to do better, to be better than HWR. Sylvie points out that no matter what they do they'll be playing god to which Loki replies, we are gods.
What is so significant about this line is that if 2012 Loki had said it he would have meant it boastfully, as if being a god made him surperior and better than everyone else. As if being a god gave him the right to rule over and dictate the lives of those who he considered beneath him. But this Loki doesn't mean it like that. He lets out this resigned sigh right before he says the line, because now he really understands what it means to be a god, to be a king. It's not about power or recognition, its about responsibilty, its about protecting others, looking out for them and often doing it thanklessly. It about having the responsibility of making those really hard choices, of being the ones to solve the problem, of having the responsibilty of carrying the burden for those who can't. This was something that 2012 Loki didn't understand but that our Loki has come to learn and I just love that growth.
But this concept of gods and the role they play also tells us alot about Sylvie and her character. We can see that she looks genuinely distressed at the idea of them 'playing god.' I think this is because of the way she sees the role of a god and its similar to how Loki used to think. She thinks a god is someone who ruthlessly rules over others, who dictates and controls their lives, who makes up their own rules and enforces them when people don't live within the constraints they've created for them. She sees it this way because its what HWR did to her, dictated her life, claimed to have written it all out for her and then tried to erase her when she didn't follow the path he had set out for her. Although I don't think He Who Remains was a god it was very much a role he played into. Sylvie is just so desperate to not be like HWR that I don't think she really knows what to do with herself, it seems to me like she is just second guessing every decision and as a result she isn't really doing anything, she's struggling to make any decision at all. This could be because of her decision to kill HWR. In the moment she was so sure that she was making the correct choice, that freeing the timelines was the right thing to do, but since then the problem with the loom has come up, threatening those very timelines she wanted to free, a variant of HWR showed up just as HWR warned them and I think that has lead to Sylvie just having alot of self doubt that she doesn't want to face, so instead she's just kind of burying her head in the sand so that she doesn't get overwhelmed by the guilt of thinking this is all her fault because she 'played god' when she killed HWR and its created a whole load more problems.
There is another really interesting way that they showed the difference in Loki and Sylvie's journey in this scene though. Though I could just be looking into this way too much but it was something I noticed and that is the, I think they call it blocking, of the scene. The positioning of the characters and the way they move.
When Loki first comes into the room, where Sylvie already is, he actually moves away from her, over to one side of the room, but then turns to face her. What is interesting is that as he moves away from her, she actually follows him but stops in the centre of the room. It creates this idea that they are both mirroring each other, that she is following him, but they don't quite meet just yet.
Loki actually moves several times during this scene, whilst Sylvie stays fixed on that one spot. I think this is meant to show how Loki has gone on a journey and changed, he hasn't stayed in the same place he was at at the beginning of season 1, whereas Sylvie is currently stuck in one spot and still at the start of her journey.
The first time Loki moves is right after Sylvie talks about his faith in OB and Casey and as he brings up how Mobius, B-15 and the guys are protecting the timelines. I think its significant that he moves at this moment as it represents the first step or milestone in his journey, the moment he learnt to trust, to put his faith in others and to come to care for others.
He moves again when he tells Sylvie that you can't give people free will and then just walk away and when he talks about needing to do better and protect the timelines. Again I think this shows the progression of his journey, now instead of playing the part of the villain, of wanting to control and rule over people, he is playing the part of the protector, he has literally bettered himself.
As a sidenote, something significant for Sylvie's character in this scene is that although she is stuck on that one spot, she shifts as Loki moves to keep herself facing him, so its like she is following his journey which could be a hint that eventually Sylvie will reach the same place Loki has.
The final time he moves is when he approaches Sylvie and then says the line 'we are gods.' I think there are a couple of things that are significant here. The first is that again this represents the final step in Loki's journey, him realising the true meaning of being a god and the responsibility that goes with it. The second is that he moves closer to Sylvie so that he is standing with her now. He brings them together, literally closing the distance between them. I also think this ties in with what I said just above about Sylvie eventually reaching the same place Loki has, in this moment they are standing in the same place. As the camera pans out we are shown them standing together as one unit. Which brings me to my next and final section.
All The Things They Didn't Say.
So ever since the citadel where Loki betrayed his promise to Sylvie when he didn't stand with her against HWR and Sylvie betrayed Loki's trust when she kicked him through the time door, these two have had this huge distance and barrier between them. They both feel betrayed by the other, they both feel hurt by the other and since then they've just continued to have disagreements with each other and haven't really spoken about their issues.
What I thought was interesting about the scene in the pie room is that although it could seem like they are having a disagreement like all the other times they've talked this season, its actually the first time they communicate openly and clearly with each other. I also think its the first time they really stop and listen to what the other person is actually saying and then explaining themselves in turn. Loki is listening to Sylvie's concerns and then reassuring her and explaining to her his way of thinking. Sylvie in turn is actually taking in Loki's point of view and making an effort to understand them and I think Loki really does give her some food for thought here. They aren't hurriedly screaming at each other whilst one of them tries to kill somebody and the other stands in their way, they aren't being interrupted with the news that an attack is going to be carried out on the branches. Despite the seriousness and urgency of the Loom's possible destruction, they are having a calm conversation. I personally love that progress.
But as I mentioned above there was one moment where Loki does get frustrated with Sylvie and he gets just a tad heated. I did promise I would come back to it and here is why I think it is significant that he gets frustrated at that moment. It is as he says the words 'walk away' that the frustration comes in and he himself actually moves further away from Sylvie and he turns away from her too, breaking their eye contact for a moment. I think the reason why he is upset is actually because he believes she walked away from him finding a new life on her branch where she is happy without him. He feels like she abandoned him just like he feels like she is abandoning the job of keeping the branches safe.
At the start of the scene Loki says that he asked for Sylvie's help but she walked away, her response is to point out no she didn't she was there, to which he counters only because she couldn't kill Victor. To me Loki seemed a bit bitter when he said this and it reminded me so much of the moment on the Ferris wheel when Sylvie asks if Loki cares about anything other than the TVA. In both these instances I think they both wanted the other to say that they were there for them, that they had shown up for them. The sad part is that actually I do think they did show up for the other person, because they wanted to know the other person was ok but they've been unable to communicate that to each other. So Sylvie is upset and hurt because she thinks Loki only came looking for her because he cared about the TVA and Loki is upset because he believes Sylvie only showed up because she couldn't kill Victor and still doesn't trust him and not because she actually wants to help or be near Loki.
I do think some parts of this conversation are acting as a film for what they really want to say to each other but can't seem to find the confidence to. There's alot of subtext here in my opinion.
One of those moments is Loki telling that story about Thor going soft. The part Loki left out was that the thing that made Thor change was meeting and falling in love with Jane. I think what Loki wants to say but doesn't here is that it wasn't just Mobius, B-15, Casey and OB that changed him, it was meeting and falling in love with her. He has grown because of her, his change began when he heard her story, when they worked together on Lamentis, when he for the first time began to care about someone other than himself, he just wanted her to be ok. She was such an instrumental part of his character growth, just like Jane was such a big part of Thor's growth and I like to think that the writers were drawing parallel between the two couples here.
There's also the part where Loki is talking about how fixing what's broken is hard. Again I think this has some relevance to their relationship. Like Loki is almost challenging her, that fixing their broken relationship is hard but just like fixing the TVA could make it into something better, something stronger, fixing their relationship could make it better, make them stronger. At the moment they are both taking the easy path of keeping those barriers between them up, because they trusted each other before, opened themselves up to another person for the first time and fell in love and in the end they both got hurt. So its easier to keep their distance and stay closed off from the other instead of trying to fix what's broken between them and potentially opening themselves up for more hurt.
Loki also says that hope is hard, but I do think that there is a little bit of hope for Sylki's relationship in this scene, its subtle but its there. And that little glimmer of hope comes when they are talking about having to do better and about playing god. They use two terms that I think are really important, 'we' and 'us'. Loki doesn't say I have to do better, or you have to do better, he says we have to better. Sylvie doesn't say you're playing god or I'm playing god but we are playing god. And again Loki doesn't say I am a god or you are a god but we are gods. Despite the distance between them, despite them struggling to get back to a place they were in their relationship before, they are talking about themselves as one unit. It's a discussion about what they are going to do together. This is actually a subtle shift from earlier in their conversation where Sylvie says what if you're wrong and what if I'm wrong or when she says you're going to show timely all this. Here she is talking about them as two separate units, which I think shows that shift in her thinking where she starts out seeing Loki and the TVA on one side together and her on the other at the start of the conversation, but come the end of it she is seeing her and Loki on the same side. I also think it adds more significance to that shot towards the end of the scene where they are both standing in the same spot, close together.
Anyway, as I said before it is possible that I am looking way too much into this, I have watched that scene more times than is healthy so. But I did really enjoy seeing Loki and Sylvie working together again in this episode, there were other little moments between them that I really loved. Like when Sylvie first shows up when they are talking to Victor Loki actually looks at her twice. He looks back when she first approaches, then back to Victor, but then you see him turn to look at Sylvie again like he just had to double check she was still there, which I don't know, I found it cute. Also when OB brings up Sylvie killing HWR Loki quickly looks over to her like he wants to check she's not upset, of course she's just looking smug about it. There were lots of little looks like that throughout the episode. Him making sure she was ok when she got stuck in the elevator was another cute moment. I also loved them shouting down the phone together at OB when he said he'd have to turn off the dampeners that prevent magic and watching them team up against brad. So I am really excited to see where they are going to take their relationship in the next couple of episodes.
I know some people are worried that they haven't got enough time to reunite them romantically and that it would seem too rushed, I personally am not too worried about that. I think I'd be more worried if they had never developed them romantically before but we've got season 1 as a foundation to build upon, is not like they have to develop a romance from scratch. Also they did a really good job of building alot of their romantic relationship in ep 3 and 4 of season 1 without it feeling rushed so I am choosing to have faith in the writing team that they can reunite them in a satisfying way in the last couple of episodes, as I do think they did make alot of headway in this episode in bringing them back together.
Anyway I have rambled on enough now, so this is where I am going to leave it. If you have read all the way to end, thank you for your time, I know this got long.
I think I'm gonna give a break of Loki fandom, there's nothing else to be said, sylki is canon and the show is amazing
arguing with haters is useless, they won't change their opinion, and they won't make me change my opinion, all this toxic bahavior in the fandom is just making no good to my mental health, I already have enough anxiety to deal with daily, so keep yourself with your opinion and your fanfictions, and I will stay here with my canon ship
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