Wynterwolf

I love that one of the big questions for this ep is just how much of it was an illusion, and who exactly created it.

It could also be a way for the TVA PTB to control their minutemen (without them realizing the actual reasoning behind it): give them ridiculously powerful technology because they need it to perform their prescribed duties, but build in subtle failsafes (like short-ish battery life), in addition to the social conditioning and memory wipes, to make sure they don't act on any independent ideas they might have. And TPTB don't actually need to worry about losing minutemen when something goes wrong (unless it's something with the potential to affect their overall goal, like Sylvie stepping up her actions from evasion to actively attacking them), since they have a steady supply of replacements. And now I'm wondering if there are any more Variants in the "sacred" timeline who have been hiding... I see a few problems with that idea. First, Loki isn't Tony Stark - or even Peter Parker. He's not really used to (or skilled at) modifying unfamiliar technology. There's a reason (other than "It'll piss off Thor") that he used Erik Selvig to set up the Tesseract gate for the Chitauri invasion force. He didn't know how. Hell, in this episode when Loki used the time gate he sent himself and Sylvie to super moon death world. Second, one major problem with "Loki is using illusions to gaslight Sylvie" is that his illusions wouldn't be believable. Because he's never been to Lamentis and is less familiar with it than Sylvie is. It's why he got blasted by that old woman - because his illusion of her husband acted out of character. It's also a reason Loki didn't produce illusory train tickets - because he didn't know what they looked like. Now, I think he did use an illusion when he showed her the destroyed time door device. I think he wanted to see what she'd do. Sorry, missed this earlier... yes, I agree, the only illusion was Loki showing her the broken tempad. As for recharging the tempad, definitely true about Loki not being very tech savvy (he likes magic!), but a lot of things could have happened while Sylvie was asleep, and he could have found someone who was tech savvy. And Sylvie could have also overstated how hard it would be to recharge it, trying to discourage him. And another interesting potential one-upmanship thing could be that Sylvie has guessed he has the charged tempad, but that she was also playing along to see what he'd do/how far he'd take it, while also waiting for an opportunity to take it back from him. Or none of that could be true!! Games within games!

I didn't watch WandaVision, but it occurs to me that the TVA are basically doing what I understand Wanda did to the town, just amped up to infinity and beyond and given an official/authoritative/'governmental' veneer (which a lot of people have a tendency to just accept without conscious thought).

Yes, I feel like his goal was to get safely away from Lamentis without revealing he had a charged, working timepad (I think the broken one he showed her was an illusion, especially since he did the fireworks trick on the train). He wanted to be able to get off the planet some other way, but now that's not possible so if he does have it, he'll have to produce it and basically destroy all the work he just did building a rapport (not trust) with her, and revealing his deception and also his ace in the hole (the timepad). I also do think he was shown to be moved by the plight of the inhabitants, but realistically (heh) there really isn't much he could do for them. I also think he's considered just leaving Sylvie there, but his feelings about her are also complicated and he simply doesn't want to. But I think part of the growth for this Loki is going to be figuring out how - and by what criteria - he wants to make choices now. Especially since he's realized that in the life he was shown that he lived, he was used like a puppet and all his choices where influenced and directed by an outside force.

One thing that had occurred to me as I was watching, during the part when Sylvie woke up and Loki wasn't in the uniform anymore, that Loki could have found some sort of energy source on the train and recharged the timepad without her knowledge. And that the rest of the ep was Loki creating a scenario to see how she would react to different situations. I'm still not entirely convinced he didn't do that.

And likely Sylvie as well, given the dialog. But I agree, I liked how it was handled. And maybe the fact that the director is bisexual had something to do with that. For once, Disney/Marvel didn't embarrass themselves.

I'm still pretty certain that taser stick actually purges/disintegrates/prunes the Variant, and I suspect that's what happens to all troublesome Variants. And probably most of the others too, until they need to refill their ranks. And even if we do see another version of someone we've seen previously, there would be no way to tell if it wasn't just a different Variant. Sylvie is the wildcard here. Because Mobius never would have thought to use Loki to try to catch her otherwise, and that Loki would have just been purged like all the other Loki Variants. So this is the deviation that the TVA can't control. I will be very interested to see exactly how she escaped in the beginning.

Thoroughly enjoyed that! Lots to chew on. Appreciated getting confirmation that the TVA workers are reclaimed and reused Variants, that definitely ups the 'creepy' quotient for the TVA. And I especially appreciated getting that confirmation in an ep with clear depictions of systemic injustice. As far as I can tell, the only difference between a "real" person and a Variant, is that one does what the TVA wants them to do, and the other doesn't (until they wipe their past from their minds and control all their daily actions). If Sylvie was telling the truth about knowing she was adopted, I wonder how many variant timeline they had to go through before they got one where Loki wasn't told he was adopted (which arguably set off a very specific course of actions on his part). That was also a helluva cliffhanger.

After watching the interview with Mike Waldron, I'm now convinced that EG happened simply to free 2012 Loki so he could help/start the ball rolling to battle whoever is responsible for the TVA. And I love having several of my headcanons supported/verified, at least for the moment. Also wow, a showrunner/writer interview that didn't make me want to chase after them and stab them repeatedly with a long, sharp, pointy object.

Right, like the TVA are in a self contained bubble with its own flow of time, while every moment of time on the sacred timeline is continuously happening at the same time, so every moment is literally always happening to them (at least up to the point the Timekeepers have untangled it.) and their job is to spot anomalies as they happen, when/wherever they happen and ‘fix’ them.

It might be interesting if they were to combine Sylvie and Lady Loki. If they used Lady Loki's origin, she would have been created from Loki's soul after he died, right? So her memory and history would include up to IW Loki, the one that died trying to kill Thanos. Which could be why she so pissed, if she knows who/what the TVA are and that they used her like a tool, and "pruned" countless hers through the timeline. As for Sylvie, if Loki had created her, our Loki would remember it unless it happened sometime between 2012Loki and IWLoki, which I guess is possible, but it seems unlikely, so maybe they'll use more her look and her powers (which from what I read, seemed to be extreme and largely unknown, so it gives them a lot of "canon" leeway in what they decide she can do. Not that they actually even need that excuse).

So much yes to your entire post, but especially the above part (though I do admit, I appreciate very much the fact that they have given me a plausible 'canon' reason to question the validity of everything that happened in EG). Tom is a joy to watch, full stop, and I would be enjoying the hell out of this even if I wasn't' also engaged in the 'mystery'.

I think based on how they were created, I can see both Lady Loki and Sylvie having Loki's temporal aura, but I can also see where neither of them would consider themselves to be Loki and would be putout by that assumption. But I could also see where they wouldn't feel the need to explain why and would enjoy the TVA being wrong and trying to use that to their advantage.

They're definitely still squishy on this, and I think there might be more to a reset than what we've so far seen. But the way I'm viewing it, at the point of the timeline diverting to a new path with the potential to create a timeline that would differ enough from the "sacred" timeline to be called an alternate timeline (aka Nexus point), that's when the TVA step in. And in Loki's case, that was him teleporting (not taking the tesseract that had dropped at his feet). So once he teleported, and the Nexus event happened creating two timelines - there were two Lokis. The TVA grabbed the Loki that was on the timeline they didn't want continuing, but the other "sacred" timeline still had it's Loki following close enough to parallel to keep pace with the "sacred" timeline, even though he had grabbed the tesseract and tried to leave with it. So this is where I am supposing the TVA had another unit stepping in right before the Nexus event happened to make sure that Loki was recaptured, hence protecting the "sacred" timeline, but we didn't see that.

In one of the post ep videos linked, it's suggested that The Variant might be a combination of more than one comics character (which there is precedence for in the MCU, most notably MCU Bucky being Comics Bucky & Comics Arnie Roth). So...

She appeared to be able to inhabit other bodies at will, so maybe she used one that resembled the stained glass when she was handing out Kablooie.

I'm still wondering if this particular TVA facility is only responsible for Earth, so while they're aware other species exist, they don't have to deal with them that much? It's definitely weird not to see representatives from other worlds if this facility is supposed to be responsible for more than just Earth.

Yeah, I agree. And I don't even think it matters much whether Steve created a new timeline, or if it was a time loop (though now I get why M&M originally wrote it as a loop, even though you have to ignore a lot of logistical issues if you buy that), or he did something else (because after this ep, there are a ton of possibilities including EG Steve himself being from an alternate timeline they allowed to grow, where him 'returning the stone' was actually him going back to his original timeline). In any case, it was engineered by the TVA and the end result was to take Steve off the board starting from the point he left to 'return the stones' (who knows who the wrinkly dude was, he literally could have been anyone/thing). And since I can imagine every version of Steve being as much of a pain to the TVA with frequent variant activity as Loki probably is, I can imagine them devising a way to just park "sacred" timeline him somewhere after he fulfilled what they needed him to, so they wouldn't have to deal with him anymore.

This seems like it could be significant:

This had bothered me at first too. You can see them - damaged and broken apart - in the foreground where he lands in the desert, but we don't see how that happened. I guess we're just supposed to assume they broke on impact (but that also brings up questions for me that I am trying to ignore).

That was my take too. Loki taking the tesseract wasn't enough to trigger a TVA intervention, but him teleporting to Mongolia was. And also that you don't have to mess with time itself to get in trouble with them, you just have to take a path that deviates too far from their "sacred" baseline. She called it a "standard sequence violation". Re: Resetting = killing - Loki took it as such. When he was sentenced, then Mobius intervened before it was carried out, he asked, "Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?" Mobius says, "No, that's where you just were."

I wonder if Rogue Loki's plan is to blow up that TVA facility using those reset bombs he's collecting. Thus, setting Free Will free on Earth since there would be no Earth-based TVA to stop it, thus jumpstarting the Multiverse.

I'm wondering if it's because free will does indeed exist, but the TVA are actively suppressing it. So pulling out trouble makers, analyzing every word they've ever spoken, and putting them through a judgement/trial process is part of how they determine if someone was just late for work one day, or if they might be a recurring threat to their "sacred timeline". Plus I agree that a lot of them might become worker bees. They seem to need a lot of them, and getting zapped as they go about their duties seems like it's not an infrequent occurrence.

I was thinking more about this and I *think* it might be that Loki was still approved to grab the tesseract and mess up the Avenger's plans, but he wasn't supposed to actually get away with the thing. So the TVA showed up as soon as he teleported. The teleporting was the initiation of the branch they didn't want, not him disrupting the heist. As to why he needs a trial? Got me, other than I can imagine that Loki causes them a boatload of trouble setting off branches all the time, so they are probably pretty done with him in general. 😄

Because from the point the branch happens, there are two of him (and everyone else). One still on the "sacred" timeline and the one we saw, which was now on a different path. So clipping that branch, or 'resetting it, appears to mean he (and everyone else that is on that same path with him), ceases to exist.