WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Loki Episode 4, “The Nexus Event,” now streaming on Disney+.
The first episode of Loki built up an alternate timeline version of the Asgardian god as the series’ villain, but the further the characters delve into the bureaucracy of the Time Variance Authority, the more it seems it like the TVA are the true antagonists. Emotionless, detached from moral judgement and perpetuated through lies and secrecy, the viewer can rest easy settling onto Sylvie’s side of her conflict against the organization.
In the latest episode of Loki, Sylvie revealed that she does not even know what her nexus event was, the act that spurred her arrest at the hands of the TVA. But judging by the TVA’s conduct, the cold hard truth may be that there wasn’t one.
A flashback at the start of Loki Episode 4 provides insight into Sylvie’s past. Playing around with toys as a young girl fantasizing about the Valkyrie and their battle with a dragon, the TVA, headed by Ravonna, suddenly shows up to arrest her. The girl is coldly processed, scared as she goes through the same environs that intimidated Loki as an adult, and finally manages to wriggle her way free just before her sentencing. In the present day, she finds herself face-to-face with Ravonna yet again and asks the question she’s wondered all her life.
Sylvie wants to know what her nexus event was, the deviation from the timeline that creates limitless Lokis like herself. Ravonna’s response is to tell Sylvie that she does not even remember what the arresting offense was, a testament to the countless times Ravonna enacted the Time-Keepers’ will and ruined so many lives. The implication is that Ravonna truthfully cannot remember, but given how far-reaching Ravonna’s lies prove to be in the rest of the episode, it could easily be a lie. Despite seeming like a friend to Mobius, it turns out she deceived him about his fellow agent’s fate, and she does not even bat an eyelash at the reveal of the Time-Keepers’ true robotic nature.
It’s key to remember that it was Ravonna who handed down Loki’s sentencing when he was first processed at the TVA, and that she clearly holds no soft spot for the God of Mischief. Her deceptive relationship with Mobius seems to indicate that Ravonna is wholly committed to whatever deeper cause is at work beneath the façade of maintaining the “Sacred Timeline” the TVA touts to uphold. It also suddenly seems so arbitrary to determine some events as deviant and other events as preordained. When Loki tried to point out that the Avengers messed with the timeline more than he did, his complaint was handwaved, but it seems the TVA’s motivations are clearly not as noble as they claimed.
Thus, Lady Loki‘s innocence as a child could be just that: innocence. Simply playing with her toys, not disturbing anyone and acting no differently than any other Loki, her arrest may not have been because of the violation of preordained events. Instead, it could’ve been a manipulation tactic to cultivate the timeline according to the will of some darker force. Trying to figure out whether this dark force knew she would escape and enact the difficulties for the TVA that she did only further boggles the mind. There have already been hints that even the God of Mischief’s mischief is simply another part of a grander plan, and Sylvie’s seeming childhood innocence appears to support that.
While he has been a villain previously in the MCU, a central question of Loki is exploring whether or not the God of Mischief is innately a bad person. Indeed, the worse the TVA proves, the better Sylvie seems by comparison. If the organization really is the extension of an evil entity, then her success as a rebellious force fighting against it may make her one of the greatest heroes of all time.
Loki stars Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Sophia Di Martino, Richard E. Grant, Sasha Lane, and Eugene Cordero. New episodes air Wednesdays on Disney+.
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