Marvel's L0Ki Discussion Thread

happyninja42

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So Loki.
Loki has a thing for Lady Loki, and she might have a thing for him. Sure okay. TBH I think its kinda sweet, but that's my emotional opinion. Here's my critical opinion: Why did they wait to introduce this plot element in episode 4 of 6?
As a guess, it's going to be expanded on in further MCU installments. Not saying that's a good idea, for narrative purposes within the scope of this show, but that seems the most likely "why" answer considering the details.
 

SilentPony

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As a guess, it's going to be expanded on in further MCU installments. Not saying that's a good idea, for narrative purposes within the scope of this show, but that seems the most likely "why" answer considering the details.
Maybe? But I thought I remembered Tom Hiddleston saying there are no plans for Loki in the MCU after the tv show, which may make the Romeo and Juliet comparison more apt than I thought.
 

XsjadoBlayde

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It's going to end with Loki and whoever liberating the repressed timeline the not-quite-crypto-fash keepers are keeping restrained for crypto-fash reasons, is a high probability I bet. The last shot will be everyone looking at the splintering timeline with newfound relief. Then maybe a disgruntled Doctor Strange pops in with a disapproving scowl for a predicted post-credits sequel hook.
 
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It's going to end with Loki and whoever liberating the repressed timeline the not-quite-crypto-fash keepers are keeping restrained for crypto-fash reasons, is a high probability I bet. The last shot will be everyone looking at the splintering timeline with newfound relief. Then maybe a disgruntled Doctor Strange pops in with a disapproving scowl for a predicted post-credits sequel hook.
So are we taking bets on whose really running the TVA? Revonna? Kang? Ms. Minutes(I'm joking but I can see Marvel trying to pull the "She's really the cutesy face of an evil AI that really runs the show" twist).
 

SilentPony

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So are we taking bets on whose really running the TVA? Revonna? Kang? Ms. Minutes(I'm joking but I can see Marvel trying to pull the "She's really the cutesy face of an evil AI that really runs the show" twist).
What if its Loki himself? Or Dr. Strange.
Although again, this is the trap we all fell into in WandaVision, thinking there was more going on than there really is, and thinking Marvel is gonna do some epic huge reveal in a TV show. And that's just not what these shows are. These are holding pattern shows to keep people under contract and in shape and set up plot points needed for movies, but that weren't important enough to be a movie in an of itself. If this is actually setting up the multiverse for Dr. Strange 2, is most likely ends with Loki and Lady Loki kissing and dying to explode the TVA. And I doubt we'd get a Dr. Strange cameo. Maybe Wong shows up. MAYBE. But all these shows are on real small budgets.
WandaVision was mostly just on a single street or grey featureless walled rooms. Falcon/Winter Soldier was mostly in abandoned warehouses, a pier or individual grey featureless rooms. Loki has mostly been in an office building, quarries, or abandoned supermarkets.
 
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happyninja42

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Maybe? But I thought I remembered Tom Hiddleston saying there are no plans for Loki in the MCU after the tv show, which may make the Romeo and Juliet comparison more apt than I thought.
Yes well it's well documented that the actors are instructed to lie about spoiler content, whenever asked. So, I would take that with a huge grain of salt.

However, it could be a passing of the torch kind of thing? That this is Tom's swan song for Loki, and they are introducing FemKi to be the new, younger (and thus primed for a long movie contract) actress, to move forward with the franchise, in the role. So they let him have primary screen time for the majority of the show, let her show up near the end as transition, and then TomKi dies to help her, redeem himself, and stop the TVA.
 

XsjadoBlayde

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So are we taking bets on whose really running the TVA? Revonna? Kang? Ms. Minutes(I'm joking but I can see Marvel trying to pull the "She's really the cutesy face of an evil AI that really runs the show" twist).
Hm, been attempting to ponder there, but with so little knowledge on the source material, all I got is Kevin Spacey. 😔
 
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Piscian

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So todays finale was.....unexpected. I can only speak for myself, but boy if I wasn't locked in before I'm locked in now. I mean I get that none of this matters and I'm sure they'll take it back, but I'm dying to see how all this is gonna play out.

A. I'm sorry, but of the three marvel shows, Tom hiddleston is simple the most compelling actor on screen.
B. Idk I'm a sucker for time travel and intrigue.
 
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SilentPony

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So todays finale was.....unexpected. I can only speak for myself, but boy if I wasn't locked in before I'm locked in now. I mean I get that none of this matters and I'm sure they'll take it back, but I'm dying to see how all this is gonna play out.

A. I'm sorry, but of the three marvel shows, Tom hiddleston is simple the most compelling actor on screen.
B. Idk I'm a sucker for time travel and intrigue.
See my problem is the intrigue itself, and I referenced the Good Place earlier. When the plot is supposed to make the character think its bullshit, its all the easier for us watchers to realize what's happening, and all intrigue goes out the window.
Loki is suspicious of and doesn't trust the TVA, and that leads us as watchers to be like "Oh that doesn't make sense, this part doesn't make sense, that person is clearly lying," etc... And the intrigue is gone because just on the premise there's a mystery, we've already guessed the outcome.
 

gorfias

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So todays finale was.....unexpected. I can only speak for myself, but boy if I wasn't locked in before I'm locked in now. I mean I get that none of this matters and I'm sure they'll take it back, but I'm dying to see how all this is gonna play out.

A. I'm sorry, but of the three marvel shows, Tom hiddleston is simple the most compelling actor on screen.
B. Idk I'm a sucker for time travel and intrigue.
The post trailer makes me look forward to the next episode. Have you heard the rumor that Beta Ray Bill will make an appearance? And remember in the comics when Loki turned Thor into a frog. The frog got the hammer and turned into Thor Frog? Maybe that's what's up with the alligator?
 

Piscian

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The post trailer makes me look forward to the next episode. Have you heard the rumor that Beta Ray Bill will make an appearance? And remember in the comics when Loki turned Thor into a frog. The frog got the hammer and turned into Thor Frog? Maybe that's what's up with the alligator?
I'm officially going with Loki built the TVA.
 
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Schadrach

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I guess? Never watched the magicians beyond the pilot. But I'm pretty sure the novels get more mature than a scifi level show. I recall the plot elements being really dumb in Magicians?
The books are better, but the first episode of the series is comparatively light. It takes a couple before it gets dark, the first episode of it is mostly introducing characters and establishing the location. There's a very general trend throughout that magic doesn't solve problems, it mostly just makes them more complicated - and yet they keep trying.
 
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SilentPony

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Theory time: The head of the TVA isn't Kang or some cosmic God, its an another variant of Loki, this one trying to rule all of creation.
2nd Theory: Assuming Femki and Tomki both survive, the show ends with them finding some little alternative universe where they can rule Asgard as King and Queen, giving them both a satisfying ending and options to make cameos in later movies.
 

Bob_McMillan

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The head of the TVA being some other Loki would make sense, since someone obviously needs mind control powers to erase the variants' memories.

But anyway, I'm starting think there is no sacred timeline and in reality, they're just slowly taking out other multiverses and stealing their resources or personalities or some shit. Like a mad collector, Brainiac style. "Pruning" actually just being sent to a weird world doesn't sound very time travel-y.

Oh and they really are trying to make Sylvie sympathetic. Maybe you shouldn't have shown her killing people for fun then Marvel. Perhaps she didn't see the Minutemen as real people before she mindfucked C-20, but still. Feels a whole lot like what happened with Karli from FATWS.
 

Piscian

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The head of the TVA being some other Loki would make sense, since someone obviously needs mind control powers to erase the variants' memories.

But anyway, I'm starting think there is no sacred timeline and in reality, they're just slowly taking out other multiverses and stealing their resources or personalities or some shit. Like a mad collector, Brainiac style. "Pruning" actually just being sent to a weird world doesn't sound very time travel-y.

Oh and they really are trying to make Sylvie sympathetic. Maybe you shouldn't have shown her killing people for fun then Marvel. Perhaps she didn't see the Minutemen as real people before she mindfucked C-20, but still. Feels a whole lot like what happened with Karli from FATWS.
I 100% agree it's all a charade. That they are simply pruning events that could somehow affect their preferred outcome.

One equation that doesn't really work is that variants are reaching full adulthood before the TVA gets around to noticing them. That doesn't really make sense. They should be detected likely before they were even born. I have a theory that this idea that the TVA is a hundreds plus millennia year old organization is also fake. I think it's possible the TVA was just recently manufactured into existence by Loki possibly to avoid his own death at the hands of Thanos, earlier or later deaths by pruning realities looking for the one where he lives forever. It wouldn't surprise me if the Loki we see literally is the variant that eventually creates the TVA in a bizarre self- created paradox.
 

Bob_McMillan

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One equation that doesn't really work is that variants are reaching full adulthood before the TVA gets around to noticing them. That doesn't really make sense. They should be detected likely before they were even born. I have a theory that this idea that the TVA is a hundreds plus millennia year old organization is also fake. I think it's possible the TVA was just recently manufactured into existence by Loki possibly to avoid his own death at the hands of Thanos, earlier or later deaths by pruning realities looking for the one where he lives forever. It wouldn't surprise me if the Loki we see literally is the variant that eventually creates the TVA in a bizarre self- created paradox.
Yeah, Sylvie even reaching childhood makes no sense, if her "variance" is, you know, her being a girl. Or does the TVA have a very arbitrary age limit?

And Loki paradoxically ending up being the creator of the TVA is plausible, in the sense there is no way a villainous reveal would have any weight if it was just some fucking rando. Loki somehow ending up as the big bad, as one of the few characters that was focused on in the show, wouldn't feel so out of place. But at the same, that's a sad ass ending and I'm hoping it is just a different him, and older version maybe.
 
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Dalisclock

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See my problem is the intrigue itself, and I referenced the Good Place earlier. When the plot is supposed to make the character think its bullshit, its all the easier for us watchers to realize what's happening, and all intrigue goes out the window.
Loki is suspicious of and doesn't trust the TVA, and that leads us as watchers to be like "Oh that doesn't make sense, this part doesn't make sense, that person is clearly lying," etc... And the intrigue is gone because just on the premise there's a mystery, we've already guessed the outcome.
I mean, it doesn't help that the TVA practially screams "We're the bad guys" from the get go. Like PR video with their Folksy Clock Mascot pretty much tells us off the bat that they wipe out any timelines that they deem a threat, which apparently is all of them. They have posters "If in doubt, Delete" and all of their goons like like stormtroopers. The Audience smells Bullshit from the start and Loki has no real reason to trust them either.

Maybe I'm spoiled by reading SCP where the threats they deal with on a constant basis are real, often terrifying and sometimes threaten the world/reality itself, and the organization feels like it's barely keeping shit together and has a great deal of moral greyness in their methods, which range from "We're dicks who blunt force solutions via throwing expendable staff at it" to "We're trying our best to keep everything sane and sometimes we have to make impossibly difficult decisions" because there's no true canon and anyone can write an entry. And I was hoping the TVA would be a little closer to that.
 

SilentPony

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I mean, it doesn't help that the TVA practially screams "We're the bad guys" from the get go. Like PR video with their Folksy Clock Mascot pretty much tells us off the bat that they wipe out any timelines that they deem a threat, which apparently is all of them. They have posters "If in doubt, Delete" and all of their goons like like stormtroopers. The Audience smells Bullshit from the start and Loki has no real reason to trust them either.

Maybe I'm spoiled by reading SCP where the threats they deal with on a constant basis are real, often terrifying and sometimes threaten the world/reality itself, and the organization feels like it's barely keeping shit together and has a great deal of moral greyness in their methods, which range from "We're dicks who blunt force solutions via throwing expendable staff at it" to "We're trying our best to keep everything sane and sometimes we have to make impossibly difficult decisions" because there's no true canon and anyone can write an entry. And I was hoping the TVA would be a little closer to that.
SCP lost something when I learned SCP-2000, a save-point for Earth that completely rebuilds all of civilization, resets the timeline and brings everyone and their dogs back to life through "cloning" and has been used a bunch of times to just wait out the giant floating chicken head apocalypse, and that the world and primary SCP universe has been destroyed over and over, but its okay because they always quicksave before and just reset.
And then there is one, not sure its canon anymore or what number it was, but it was basically the SCP containment breach game itself, and the SCP wiki, and the SCP foundation found out its a sci-fi horror game invented by some dudes and uses a passionate community to come up with new ideas, and that's where new SCP keep coming from, why reality changes sometimes, and why there's contradicting information and reboots every now and then.
And ones you throw in the eternal quicksave machine and self-awareness its a sci-fi world, I lose all interest.
Imagine if Loki finds a clip show of Loki and realizes he's on TV, and finds a device to rewind the show and kiss FemKi. It'd ruin any stakes.
 

Dalisclock

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SCP lost something when I learned SCP-2000, a save-point for Earth that completely rebuilds all of civilization, resets the timeline and brings everyone and their dogs back to life through "cloning" and has been used a bunch of times to just wait out the giant floating chicken head apocalypse, and that the world and primary SCP universe has been destroyed over and over, but its okay because they always quicksave before and just reset.
And then there is one, not sure its canon anymore or what number it was, but it was basically the SCP containment breach game itself, and the SCP wiki, and the SCP foundation found out its a sci-fi horror game invented by some dudes and uses a passionate community to come up with new ideas, and that's where new SCP keep coming from, why reality changes sometimes, and why there's contradicting information and reboots every now and then.
And ones you throw in the eternal quicksave machine and self-awareness its a sci-fi world, I lose all interest.
Imagine if Loki finds a clip show of Loki and realizes he's on TV, and finds a device to rewind the show and kiss FemKi. It'd ruin any stakes.
Eh, SCP 2000 doesn't bother me any more then having the universe and/or humanity facing about 3 dozen existential threats at any given time and the Foundation is either delaying the inevitable or barely holding the thing back. SCP-2000 feels like a reaction to that, just to handwave why humanity hasn't been completely wiped out it by going "Oh, it has, but we've got a way to fix it ALA Horizon Zero Dawn" with the caveat is nobody is really sure how it works or how many times it can be used.

And honestly, half the time a given SCP writer who is writing a "World is fucked" XK class SCP will normally find a way to disable SCP-2000 anyway. SCP-5000 comes to mind, where the Foundation basically decides to "KILL ALL HUMANS" because reasons and the first thing they do is set off a nuke to blow up the reset button. Since nothing is canon, you can take it or leave it however you want.

I mean, I'm still trying to figure out how the foundation has an endless supply of D-class to toss at whatever lethal thingy they're dealing with this week or where their budget comes from or how the hell they get every government to more or less give them carte blanch to do what they want.
 

SilentPony

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Okay so...

Old man in a diaper Loki was goofy, weird snarky kin Loki was goofy, President Trump Loki was goofy, black magic Loki was goofy, alligator loki was kinda cute, the whole smoke Langoliers monsters was goofy, and haunted mansion was Resident Evil was goofy.
Also just calling it, its not Kang the Conqueror, its just another version of Loki running the whole thing.
Also also are Tomki and Femki a thing now? They cuddles under a blanket and held hands, and that's as much romance as most movies give their leads.
Overall this episode was incredibly goofy, and not in a Bill and Ted way, in a mid-90s made for TV Stephen King horror movie way. And its the second to last episode, with no signs of a resolution coming. They did this in WandaVision too, waited until the last episode to introduce a big bad, and then wrapped it up in 5 minutes.