S02.E06: Glorious Purpose

[tv-talk]

3 hours ago, gail56 said:

I am sure HWR had the power to kill Sylvie himself, but he wanted Loki to do it.

Everytime she killed him he was completely smug, saying see you soon or whatever it was. He definitely was not actually dying in that scenario, it was part of his overall plan. Which in the end didnt make that much sense.  In fact in hindsight it seems like he could have just been messing with Loki for some reason we dont know yet and in fact there is another later of reality above the loom where HWR is messing about. 

[Morrigan2575]

If I understood it, HWR didn't worry about Sylvie killing him because he had contingency plans that would bring him back (Ms Minutes/Smiley/Renslayer). The Loom breaking was the failsafe, it would prune all other timeliness and,save the Sacred timeline (HWR timeline), meaning all Kang Variants would be killed. Where I get shakey is how we get back to HWR from Timely. In any case HWR plan was clear, death was never his end, he'd just reboot the TVA and start over again.

I've watched a view videos online, most discard Loki as MCU Living Tribunal (I still think it's possible) and, say he's become the God of Stories which is Loki's current role in the comics. 

I still lean towards Living Tribunal or One Above All.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Morrigan2575

[HelloooKitty]

Just to be sure I completely understand- Loki is literally holding the fabric of time and space together. 
like, “he’s got the whole world, in his hands” takes on a new meaning now…

[KerleyQ]

Didn't HWR say something to Loki about reincarnation when he was explaining why he'd just let Sylvie kill him without fighting back? 

[Wonderlad71]

Great finale to an otherwise tedious season.

Kudos to Hiddleston - amazing acting and spectacular art direction. 

But will agree with some who commented that much of the season felt like it was spinning its wheels and IMO could have been condensed into a 2 hour movie.

The whole TVA sci-fi setup was very much Fantastic Four territory - still I have mixed feelings that they looped Loki into it as his whole series premise, but they kind of made it work due to great acting. 

[arachne]

13 hours ago, HelloooKitty said:

“he’s got the whole world, in his hands” takes on a new meaning now…

And he's got plenty of time on his hands. (I'll see myself out...) 

[PurpleTentacle]

Meh.

I don't think this made much sense. Shouldn't destroying the loom have freed all the timelines? Why were they dying? That was a problem never before introduced. The problem was that there would be multiversal wars, because of the Kang variants, but it doesn't seem like anything Loki is doing is keeping those in check, that seems to be the TVA monitoring them. But how are they going to monitor infinite Kangs? Do they not know what infinite means? For that matter how are infinite timelines connected to Loki? Do they not know what infinite means? Okay, maybe it's just a visual metaphor for what is really going on, except it was never before a metaphor... but okay... regardless my other gripes remain.

Edited November 13, 2023 by PurpleTentacle

[Kanner]

Loved it, loved it, loved it. So happy sad for Loki. 
While I think it may take more MCU to explain the “science” of this show, the “fiction” was handled perfectly. Besides Loki’s growth, I think one of the big things was Loki remembering and embracing his godhood. On Reddit before this episode someone claimed that they missed the God of Mischief Loki and this could have been anyone doing these things. I think the show did this on purpose. Loki got so intrenched with the TVA and his friends that he lost his godhood (this is more than performing magic). There was some hints throughout - looking at the statues of his family and Möbius saying sometimes he forgets Loki is one of them, Loki reminding Sylvie they are gods (take that advice Loki), Loki being able to pause time by himself while HWR needs a device, and the motif of losing skin throughout. Walking on that bridge Loki lost his TVA skin and regrew his god skin. Glorious horns and all. Well done show. 

Some small things I liked - his last words are the same as Thor one (not including credits scenes). When Möbius and Sylvie are talking at the end one shot is filled with a Lena’s flare that makes the background filled with green and gold. Thanks New Rockstars. 

I know the reports and interviews, but I hope this is not the end of TH’s Loki. 

[tennisgurl]

If this is really the last we see of Loki (any Loki) then this felt like a really strong, really bittersweet ending for the character. After everything he's done and been through, he ends up with a throne after all, finding his glorious purpose. But while his previous attempts at getting a throne were based on a toxic mix of narcissism and insecurity tied up in a whole lot of selfishness, this one was actually based on reaching his full potential and doing something actually selfless, finally being the hero and not the villain of the story. I wish that he would get a chance to be with his friends and family again, but at least he can still watch over them and their new lives, and maybe even one day pop in and say hi. Loki always wanted a real purpose, and now he finally has one. 

The new Loki Loom becoming Yggdrasil was a really nice touch, as was the call back from way back in the first Thor movie when he told Odin that he did everything he did in that "For you. For all of us." I really do hope that, even if Tom is serious about being done with Loki, we can get a future scene of Thor finding out that this other version of his brother finally lived up to his potential, I think that the Odinson brothers could use a bit more closure. The transition into his classic Loki outfit, complete with horns, was also a really great affect and great from a character perspective, like he was really claiming his identity. It reminded me a bit of when the original Loki proclaimed himself a son of Asgaurd before his death by Thanos.

Nice seeing B-15 now running a better more free version of the TVA, possibly with even more than one choice of pie type! It seems like Mobius is going to be thinking about his options now, which makes me wonder what he can do now. Can he go to his original life again at this point without taking the place of another version of himself? Is he just in limbo now watching lives that he ad taken from him? I would have been thrilled at a version of the show where he and Loki played time cops for several the foreseeable many futures, even if I do like this more bittersweet ending. OB making a new handbook credited both to him and Victor was a nice touch, he really has become this seasons MVP and best new addition. 

Could Loki not have just explained to Sylvie why she cant kill He Who Remains? I guess he figured that she never would have stopped no matter what he said, I guess she was still digging her heels in until the very last second when literally everything was pasta. 

This season was not quite as fresh as last season, but it was still one of the MCU's best shows and this was a really fun season. Great performances, lots of unique ideas, one of the MCU's best aesthetics, and while I would be happy to have more of Loki, Mobius, and the TVA, if this is the end its at least a good one. Very interested in how the TVA will play a part in the MCU going forward!

Edited November 13, 2023 by tennisgurl

[Silver-hyren]

I liked the ending - a perfect send-off for the character.  2012!Loki finally got the throne he wanted and thanks to a bunch of character development now has the maturity to understand the responsibility that entails (less Scar, more Mufasa).  I just disliked most everything we had to go through to get there.

I do hope Tom is done with playing Loki because bringing him back after this would be cheap.  It’s okay for things to end.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

8 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Shouldn't destroying the loom have freed all the timelines? Why were they dying? That was a problem never before introduced.

I believe it's the failsafe?  When the Loom explodes, all the timelines besides the Sacred one are destroyed.  Previously, each time that Victor Timely failed, we focused on him spaghettifying, and then the TVA.  We weren't watching the branches outside the TVA turn brown and wither. However, we saw what it looks like from the inside; in Sylvie and OB's variant timelines, just like in the TVA, everything spaghettifies.

By averting the failsafe, Loki not only saved the various timelines by imbuing them with his energy, he also prevented the TVA from being destroyed.

[KerleyQ]

8 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Could Loki not have just explained to Sylvie why she cant kill He Who Remains? I guess he figured that she never would have stopped no matter what he said, I guess she was still digging her heels in until the very last second when literally everything was pasta. 

I don't think that would have worked. Even when he talked to the later Sylvie, who knew everything that her killing HWR caused, she still felt like it was the right thing to do. And that was a version of Sylvie who had lightened up on the TVA as  a concept. If she wouldn't agree that he shouldn't die, then there was no way that old Sylvie was going to listen to reason. 

[PurpleTentacle]

6 hours ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I believe it's the failsafe?  When the Loom explodes, all the timelines besides the Sacred one are destroyed.  Previously, each time that Victor Timely failed, we focused on him spaghettifying, and then the TVA.  We weren't watching the branches outside the TVA turn brown and wither. However, we saw what it looks like from the inside; in Sylvie and OB's variant timelines, just like in the TVA, everything spaghettifies.

When the loom overloads because there are too many timelines, it deletes all timelines but the sacred one. But at the end Loki destroyed it before it could do that. So I still don't get why Loki has to connect to the timelines to make them not die. Unless he somehow prevents the Kangs from going to war, but if this was the case, the show didn't communicate it at all. It seemed like the TVA was keeping the Kangs in check.

[arc]

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

When the loom overloads because there are too many timelines, it deletes all timelines but the sacred one.

My understanding was that under HWR's system, the loom was necessary for even the Sacred Timeline to exist, and when it broke, it destroyed the entire multiverse (including the ST) and the TVA. You'd think this would end all timelines/alt universes from start to finish such that they never existed at all, but the show got really loose with the rules here, because once the loom exploded at the end of episode 4 ("Heart of the TVA") Loki time slipped away, and then eventually time slipped back to the TVA, which he and OB/Doug agreed no longer existed at all. (As Doug said in ep 5, there is no time in the TVA, which kinda squares with the TVA sitting outside time altogether while also contradicting the fact that time clearly passes in a linear fashion within the TVA, though most TVA employees don't really know that since they get periodically memory wiped).

So HWR's 'failsafe' was that anyone who killed him would thus allow infinite branching to destroy the loom and thus all universes, and he believed no one could accept that tradeoff. Loki wouldn't either, but he found an alternate path to just killing Sylvie to save HWR.

16 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Shouldn't destroying the loom have freed all the timelines?

OB said the loom processes 'raw time' into the sacred timeline. Without it, (handwaving fan speculation starts here) I guess raw time has too much 'temporal radiation' so the timelines break down, spaghettifying the way Timely did at the end of ep 4.

[PurpleTentacle]

16 minutes ago, arc said:

My understanding was that under HWR's system, the loom was necessary for even the Sacred Timeline to exist, and when it broke, it destroyed the entire multiverse (including the ST) and the TVA.

That's what HWR wanted everybody to think. But it never really made any sense, because the loom couldn't always have been there.

Rather the loom was just another failsafe to ensure that only the sacrad timeline could exist. If it overloaded, it destroyed every timeline but the sacrad one. HWR explained it this episode.

But this time Loki destroyed it before the failsafe-function could kick in, so I still don't get why the branches were dying.

16 minutes ago, arc said:

You'd think this would end all timelines/alt universes from start to finish such that they never existed at all, but the show got really loose with the rules here, because once the loom exploded at the end of episode 4 ("Heart of the TVA") Loki time slipped away, and then eventually time slipped back to the TVA, which he and OB/Doug agreed no longer existed at all. (As Doug said in ep 5, there is no time in the TVA, which kinda squares with the TVA sitting outside time altogether while also contradicting the fact that time clearly passes in a linear fashion within the TVA, though most TVA employees don't really know that since they get periodically memory wiped).

Yeah none of that makes really any sense. But they kinda handwaved that a few episodes ago by pointing out that it didn't make sense and yet it happened. With this one I can live. Timetravel stories never make sense unless they are closed time loops. I'd just like for the parts that should make sense to make sense. Just because I handwave one part of your story, because it's impossible to square by it's very nature, doesn't mean you can now just throw all logic out the window, writers. On the contrary, if I already have to handwave part of your story, the rest better be rock solid.

16 minutes ago, arc said:

OB said the loom processes 'raw time' into the sacred timeline. Without it, (handwaving fan speculation starts here) I guess raw time has too much 'temporal radiation' so the timelines break down, spaghettifying the way Timely did at the end of ep 4.

Pretty sure what OB understood about the loom was all a lie and only what HWR said this episode was the truth.

I know time gets a bit weird, when talking about this show. But HWR spoke about the multiversal war, of which he was the only surviving Kang (hence his name). So at that point there was no sacrad timeline and no loom. So all the branching timelines have to be able to exist without the loom.

Edited November 14, 2023 by PurpleTentacle

[arc]

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Pretty sure what OB understood about the loom was all a lie and only what HWR said this episode was the truth.

Ah. TBH I kinda glossed over some of that HWR monologuing the first time. Whoops =)

[tv-talk]

So could Thor have done this instead? Or anyone from Asgard as they are called Gods? And can all of them time travel just by thinking it? Also how did Thanos simply strangle Loki to death if he is a God, the same way Hulk could have beaten him to death easily?  What IS Loki exactly? I had rather enjoyed them going to the 10,000ft view of no one really being much of anything in the grand scheme of reality, but then they pivoted to nothing making sense unless you simply say "Oh Loki has magic powers."

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by tv-talk

[Morrigan2575]

5 hours ago, tv-talk said:

So could Thor have done this instead? Or anyone from Asgard as they are called Gods? And can all of them time travel just by thinking it?

Possibly, we know Thor took a full on blast from a star in order to make Stormbreaker. Technically Loki while being a Son of Asgard is a Frost Giant which may in fact be stronger than Asgardians (although Loki always got his ass handed to him as needed for plot)

 

5 hours ago, tv-talk said:

Also how did Thanos simply strangle Loki to death if he is a God, the same way Hulk could have beaten him to death easily?

Thanos is an Eternal/Deviant although they may change that since they made The Eternals Robots 🙄

the same way Hulk could have beaten him to death easily

Not sure Hulk could have beaten Loki to death, just black and blue. Loki was in fairly decent shape after in 2011/2012 in both Avengers and Endgame.

5 hours ago, tv-talk said:

What IS Loki exactly? I had rather enjoyed them going to the 10,000ft view of no one really being much of anything in the grand scheme of reality, but then they pivoted to nothing making sense unless you simply say "Oh Loki has magic powers."

Loki is a Frost Giant adopted by Odin and Frigga and, taught magic by Frigga, who learned it from Witches in/on Asgard. 

[arc]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:19 AM, tv-talk said:

So could Thor have done this instead? Or anyone from Asgard as they are called Gods? And can all of them time travel just by thinking it? Also how did Thanos simply strangle Loki to death if he is a God, the same way Hulk could have beaten him to death easily?

Thor is very, very tough. As far as I dimly understand it — I still have never watched Thor 1 & 2 — all Asgardian are superhumanly strong and durable, but some like Thor are much more so than the average Asgardian. (Remember Hela mowed down Asgardian armies by herself.)

There’s an unrelated sci fi book series “Jumper” where one guy can teleport and then people who’ve ridden along enough times will spontaneously develop the power themselves. Maybe Loki’s time slipping -> consciously controlled time travel worked the same way.

Thanos is extremely tough. He soloed Cap, Iron Man, and Thor with two hammers. Just cause Loki is Frost Giant tough doesn’t mean he’s impervious to all harm.

Also, I believe Loki has a lot more magical training than Thor. As far as I know, Thor mostly performs magic through his hammers, and mostly just to change outfits.

[Kirbyrun]

9 minutes ago, arc said:

Thor is very, very tough. As far as I dimly understand it — I still have never watched Thor 1 & 2 — all Asgardian are superhumanly strong and durable, but some like Thor are much more so than the average Asgardian. (Remember Hela mowed down Asgardian armies by herself.)

There’s an unrelated sci fi book series “Jumper” where one guy can teleport and then people who’ve ridden along enough times will spontaneously develop the power themselves. Maybe Loki’s time slipping -> consciously controlled time travel worked the same way.

Thanos is extremely tough. He soloed Cap, Iron Man, and Thor with two hammers. Just cause Loki is Frost Giant tough doesn’t mean he’s impervious to all harm.

Also, I believe Loki has a lot more magical training than Thor. As far as I know, Thor mostly performs magic through his hammers, and mostly just to change outfits.

Yeah, all of this. (And I appreciate the Jumper shout-out! Love those books!)

I think of it this way: Asgardians (and Asgard-raised Frost Giants trained in magic) have a certain amorphous amount of generic "power." For our viewing purposes, that power is distributed across various skills, effects, buffs.

At the end of Loki, Loki basically channeled all of his power into "save the multiverse" mode. He can't do anything else. If he allows himself to be distracted or "shift" his power, everything falls apart.

I don't think any other god could do this, actually. I think they're all rigidly locked into "my power does THIS" and "my power does THAT." But Loki, as a trickster god of chaos, can transcend the locked-in order of "super-powers" and turn his allotment of power into whatever he wants.

[Morrigan2575]

Per Classic Loki Asgardians and Frost Giants Raised Asgardians also grow in power as they age, we have no idea how long Loki was in that loop. We know it was Centuries later that he was able to get Timely down the Plank and Launch the device but, who knows how long it took after that for Loki to realize this was the only way

Edited November 15, 2023 by Morrigan2575

[Affogato]

I don’t think we know and by comic book logic, perhaps some x man or another would be able to do this. Still, in the context of this story Loki has a hard earned technical understanding of the mechanism he is stepping into at the end. No one else i can think of would have the power and expertise. 

[Kel Varnsen]

That was crazy how much I enjoyed that. Even though all of the loom/time shifting stuff made no sense and was kind of dumb, Hiddleston was just so good. It's crazy to think how this version of Loki (at least before the centuries it took OB to teach him) wasn't that far removed from trying to take over earth. So it took him a lot less time to figure out not to be an asshole compared to Original Loki. And he played it so well. 

It was also interesting that Loki was using time travel inside the TVA to try to fix things since I was previously wondering why they didn't or couldn't do that.

Also considering the ending I like how in there titles, on of the fonts for the letter "O" has lines through it that kind of look like a hand holding a rope or time thread.

[arc]

8 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

It was also interesting that Loki was using time travel inside the TVA to try to fix things since I was previously wondering why they didn't or couldn't do that.

There was something earlier in the season that said there are "dampers" or something that prevented Loki and Sylvie from using magic inside the TVA. Presumably similar tech prevents time travel inside the TVA, which is why OB thought time slipping shouldn't be possible in there.

[paramitch]

I thought this was amazing, and easily one of the best show (and series?) finales I've ever seen. Incredibly smart, satisfying, emotional television. It was beautifully written, so well thought-out, and managed to be complex, moving, and even slyly funny throughout.

The entire cast was as always terrific, but especially huge props to Owen Wilson for Mobius being the soulful heart of the show, to Wunmi Mosaku's Hunter B-15 as one of its treasures (and she looked gorgeous in that orange gown at "Brad's" premier!), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (she's so talented and charismatic, even if I found Ravonna a little one-note), and Tara Strong for voicing Miss Minutes and making her truly creepy this season! Ke Huy Quan was so good as always and was instantly a seamless part of the team, and while I am not a fan of Jonathan Majors's reported real-life behavior, I thought he again gave very charismatic performances this season as both HWR and Timely. 

Also, can we TALK about Natalie Holt's gorgeous music for the finale? Her work across the show has been so fantastic and innovative (those playful opening credits!), but then that finale sequence as Loki made his choice and crossed the bridge and beyond was so majestic it had me in tears.

But give Tom Hiddleston all the awards -- the complexity of what he's asked to portray in the final 2-3 episodes is really daunting, and he does it beautifully. I especially love that he often chooses to underact, so that a universe of meaning can be conveyed in the raise of an eyebrow, a slight smile, the hint of a tear, etc. Gorgeous finale.

Was it bittersweet? Yes. But I felt everything that led up to it was built on bedrock. Loki's character arc is so satisfying because it's so complete.

The key moment for me was when Loki was back in the tower here (almost perfectly at this episode's midpoint), and he's "on pause" from Groundhog-day-fighting Sylvie to talk to HWR. And HWR is quiet and almost kind, yet still slightly off-balance, and he looks at him and says the thing that I think changes everything for Loki:

"Every moment of peace you've ever experienced was yours because I was here. Alone. At the end of time. Keeping watch."

Loki pauses, then says: "I understand."

HWR then says "You want to break the loom. What do you think would happen to your friends? I make the tough choices, that's why I get the big chair." HWR then seems sincere and tells him he's offering him mercy.

Loki turns his back, and this is where I think he realizes what he will have to do. The great thing here for me was that I instantly assumed where the episode was pointing all along -- that Loki would have to kill Sylvie. So the best part in retrospect is that Loki was never, ever willing to do that! Ever. He goes through centuries of suffering, he is told there are no options. But he has genuinely changed so much that nope, nothing is going to make him kill Sylvie, whom he loves (whether romantically or otherwise, he loves her). Loki has spent centuries with this little group of brave misfits at this point -- far longer than he spent with anyone else in such close quarters, except Thor, Frigga, and Odin. He meant every word. He loves these people.

But it makes revisiting HWR's words is so painful! Given that Loki, when pressed earlier to tell the truth, had simply admitted to two wishes in his life -- "I want to save my friends! And I don't want to be alone" -- this makes the final five minutes incredibly moving and sort of gloriously tragic. Loki has a throne, the one thing he thought he always wanted, and not only did he not want it now, but it has damned him to an eternity of sacrifice and solitude.

As was the revelation that the new Loom was now the Sacred Tree (Yggdrasil) from Norse mythology, making Loki not just the god of time but the god of stories he was always intended to be! Just so damn smart. And I loved that Yggdrasil is now the new symbol of the TVA! It's so much richer and shows the two working in tandem, a more peaceful and organic universe growing the way it wants to grow.

Loki is alone. But he has saved his friends, he can watch over them, and he has finally found his glorious purpose. I try to make it a tiny bit less tragic by assuming that he can bring people to visit him at times, where/if it won't mess with the timeline. And he can -- I would think -- always bamf over a reflection of himself to them to hang out sometimes? This seems like it might be in the rules, with Mobius, Sylvie, etc. A small few who already know everything?

Anyway, brilliant finale. Kudos to all.

PS -- I want Thor to find out. I want Thor to be proud of his brother and to know that he was right, that Loki did have good in him.

PPS -- I do wish the show had ever addressed the fact that Loki was visibly sickened/enchanted by the Mind Stone via Thanos in his first appearance in "Avengers" -- he is made up to look visibly ill there (shadowed, reddened eyes, pasty sick visage, just as Hawkeye was after 'possession'), and Marvel did confirm later that the Mind Stone had altered Loki and exacerbated his rage and vanity. So his actions in Avengers -- while absolutely villainous -- do need to have an asterisk attached (for me).

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by paramitch
fixed

[iMonrey]

I'm late to this party but maybe somebody will come back and answer a few questions. Overall I really enjoyed the show but I'm not convinced the writers understood their own premise because it often seemed contradictory.

For example, at the outset of Season 1 we were told there used to be a multiverse but it had been merged into a single "sacred" timeline. If that is the case how were there multiple Lokis? I understand how this Loki became a variant as a result of him escaping in Endgame, but the existence of a female Loki or an alligator Loki or a Black Loki suggests other universes where he'd been born those things. Are all the Loki variants from before the multiverse was merged into a single timeline? Because they made it seem like that happened before any of the Lokis existed. Sylvie was taken by the TVA when she was twelve, and presumably the TVA did not exist prior to the multiverses being merged into the sacred timeline.

What made Loki start timeslipping in the first place?

Not sure I grasp what HWR was trying to explain about the Loom being a "fail safe" but some of the earlier posts more or less helped. The problem is, if the Loom explodes and all the other timelines are destroyed, shouldn't Loki himself have been spaghettied? He's a variant too.

[arc]

On 1/2/2024 at 12:53 PM, iMonrey said:

For example, at the outset of Season 1 we were told there used to be a multiverse but it had been merged into a single "sacred" timeline. If that is the case how were there multiple Lokis?

Even after* HWR set up his Sacred Timeline, the timeline constantly splits. It's only through the actions of the TVA that they prune out timelines that vary too far from the Sacred Timeline. So there could be timelines where Loki turns himself into an alligator, or something. And then the TVA field team shows up and prunes that variant into that end-of-time wasteland.

* see below for why 'after' is kind of a difficult concept here

On 1/2/2024 at 12:53 PM, iMonrey said:

but the existence of a female Loki or an alligator Loki or a Black Loki suggests other universes where he'd been born those things.

I suppose that could be the divergence, but at that point you wonder why that person would even be Loki. I like to think that Loki variants are especially varying in appearance because Loki uses magic, but they were all originally the same baby Loki Laufeyson.

 

On 1/2/2024 at 12:53 PM, iMonrey said:

presumably the TVA did not exist prior to the multiverses being merged into the sacred timeline.

Well, this is one of those time things where "when" something happens is different inside and outside of the universe you're talking about. There was a multiverse, and eventually a multiversal war of Kangs, and HWR won out and after winning, trimmed the timelines into one Sacred Timeline that prevents other Kangs from arising, mostly through a TVA he established to delegate the work to. The TVA sits outside of time. The TVA doesn't exist inside the universe/timeline, monitoring divergence points in real time. Time passing in the universe does not correspond one-to-one to time passing in the TVA. When they do field work in the universe, they time travel willy-nilly. So outside the MCU's 616 universe, aka the Sacred Timeline, the TVA was established in year XXXX of HWR's home timeline, say. But once that happened, from the viewpoint within 616, the TVA has always existed. If XXXX was, say, the year 24000 CE, it hardly matters that the Avengers got together in 2012; the TVA could open a portal to that day anyways. Yes, in a sense it's very weird and not exactly plausible that urgent timeline splits that must be attended to happen up and down the timeline but only be considered urgent at some point within the TVA's own linear timeline, but ... <shrug> I think as far as time travel / multiverse stories go, the show gave a pretty good shot at having coherent rules for how things work.

OK, here's an analogy I just came up with. Think of the TVA like book copyeditors instead of autocorrect. There are typos randomly throughout the book. When they become aware of a big error, they go in and fix it, but they're not part of the book. They're not constrained by the linear flow of the words in the book; they can jump sentences or pages as any reader could. The copyeditors don't have to only correct the book as the current word is being written in real time; they can go back and forth through the whole thing.