Loki S1 E2: The Variant

[kerravonsen]

The plot thickens. I'm feeling all caught up in the excitement.

Okay, reactions in no particular order, because I don't want to take an hour to write this up like I did the previous one.

• The tear in Loki's eye when he read about the destruction of Asgard.
• The clever idea of hiding in apocalypses.
  • I just adore Loki when he's being intelligent (as distinct from clever)
  • The amusing way that Loki destroyed Mobius's lunch. (And stole poor Casey's drink while he was doing it.)
  • And good point: Mobius can trust Loki in this particular instance because they both know that Loki wants to demonstrate that he's right.
    • Just like Loki said to Thor in The Dark World "trust my rage". Because nobody in their right minds would ever trust Loki to be altruistic. With the exception of Thor, every now and then.
    • Sometimes one can't tell when Loki is lying. Sometimes one can.
    • Loki is always lying when he's trying to convince a powerful enemy he's really on their side; it's bloody obvious.
      • Or maybe it's just obvious because we know that Loki wouldn't really ally himself with anybody (not even himself...)
        • Notable exception being Thor, again.
    • Loki always changes his story to suit his audience.
  • Loki was being beautifully outrageous in Pompeii.
• Loved that bit where Loki was getting all technical about the difference between illusions and duplicates. Our boy is a magic geek!
• I'm amused that Loki in his many forms is their most troublesome variant ever. And it's interesting that there are a lot of variations in Loki-variants. (Was one of them green and Hulk-like? I can't be bothered going back to look.)
• I'm confused about the mind-control/possession thing that Other!Loki was doing. Was Other!Loki splitting their consciousness in order to be in those people and also in their own body? This isn't an ability that we've seen in our Loki. (He controlled people with the Mind Stone, but that's not the same thing.)
  • Is that blonde woman what Other!Loki really looks like? (Hey, it's possible?)
    • I do like her outfit.
• I didn't say so at the time, but I was wondering if there was some significance in that Other!Loki appeared to be stealing reset charges. And so it proved to be.
• No of course Other!Loki doesn't want to rule the TVA, I was certain they wanted to destroy it.
• "This isn't about you." Of course it isn't. Other!Loki wants to destroy the TVA.
• I don't really think that our Loki wants to rule the TVA either. Why the heck would he? The TVA is the epitome of boredom.
  • I'm not sure Loki really knows what he wants. Apart from "to survive". Which is fair enough (it's a motive that served Methos pretty well over the millennia).
• I'm never really sure whether Loki is playing a deep game or improvising madly.
• I like how Mobius can switch between having a friendly conversation with Loki about jetskis, and calling Loki out on his bullshit, and Loki calling Mobius out on his blatant attempts at manipulation.
  • But Loki is right in asking "what happens in the end, then, when the Timekeepers have sorted out this thing that they're so busy working on?" (I didn't quite catch what Mobius said the Timekeepers were doing.)
    • Personally, I don't think it is possible for the Sacred Timeline to ever become stable; they're playing a game of whack-a-mole here. Unless eternal stability is the thing that the Timekeepers are actually working on.
    • Thing is, the TVA's modus operandi appears to be "detect variants when they appear, and destroy them within a certain amount of time". There's nothing there about (a) what causes non-time-travel variants, or (b) whether it is possible to prevent them (rather than destroying them). If the existence of multiple timelines is the "natural" state of the multiverse, due, if nothing else, to quantum variation, then it may not be possible to prevent the creation of variants.
    • Another thing to consider is that nobody apart from the Judge-lady (Mobius's boss) appears to have ever met the Timekeepers. Perhaps they don't actually exist.
• "Someone's bombing the Sacred Timeline!"
  • I'm not sure how reset charges could be used to create new timelines, but handwave, handwave, technobabble.

My guess is that the "bombing the Sacred Timeline" is actually a diversion, so that Other!Loki can get to the Timekeepers.
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