Loki: Glorious Purpose

“I am burdened with glorious purpose!”

Who would’ve thought all those years ago, when Loki uttered those words with such egomaniacal glee, that he would one day learn exactly what that purpose would be.

Using the best elements of a time loop story, this entire season was ultimately all about redemption. There were so many layers to this, just like in those final moments when Loki was pushing through the temporal radiation and his TVA costume melted off until all that remained was his true self. It was striking imagery, as all his illusions and misdirection were literally ripped away to reveal the somewhat sad man wearing a heavy crown.

To me it felt like a wonderful ending to a beloved character. I guess ending is the right way to put it, because there could be ways of bringing him back. But wow, looking back to his first appearance in Thor, I am deeply impressed by a tremendously engaging and thoughtful character arc. To sacrifice his own free will for everyone was a heroic and godly act, a glorious end for a character we have known for fourteen years.

Which is how I took this ending, and I thought my opinion would be how this affected everyone. Of course that was wrong, but I was so thoroughly impressed that it took a dissenting opinion to get me to think about that ending a different way. Loki is a fun character, mischievous and dynamic. He is selfish and occasionally villainous, but this ending, while heroic, could easily be considered a fate worse than death.

And it made me think, is Loki capable of this kind of servitude? To be the foundation of the universe? Won’t he grow incredibly bored with sitting on a throne? Even if he can view the entirety of the multiverse, he can never be a part of it. That’s pretty heavy. Because while Loki has grown tremendously over the last two seasons of this show, learned the value of love and selflessness, of placing the needs of others above his own, is that lesson enough for this level of sacrifice?

Or even more basic, does Loki deserve this fate? Was this more of a judgment placed upon him? To serve out his days to be “doomed to wander through the world and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared!” (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol). That’s a curse, not a blessing. A fate of endless sacrifice, and while it was one he chose, it's a harsh reality to endure. No matter the contented look we got on Loki’s face, it is a dark end, for sure.

Which brings me to the crux of this episode, the time loops. What did Loki actually experience? We know he spent centuries learning about physics and technology from OB and Timely, but what else? How many times did he try to stop Sylvie? How many times did he attempt to fix the Loom? Sure, some of those instances were barely minutes of time, but again and again and again, it was clearly a vast quantity of time. He had gotten to the point where solving this riddle was his own form of prison. Where he couldn’t move forward without a solution.

His final solution, while perfect and fitting from a writing perspective, fails on one level. This was a reaction to a problem. Now he has endless time to think about it, and I cannot imagine he won’t have moments of regret. He got what he wanted, he found his glorious purpose and he found his throne of gold. He unlocked the multiverse, created Yggdrasil the World Tree, and by doing so freed his friends and the universe to move forward.

So I guess that’s where we are now. Loki has been written out, for good or bad depending on your point of view. Sylvie has been positioned to potentially take over for Loki in the MCU, and I doubt this will be the last time we see OB, B15, Renslayer, Casey, Miss Minutes or Mobius. We have already seen variants of He Who Remains, specifically with the offhanded reference to the events of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania in the final TVA scene. Victor Timely was reset and allowed to live his life without the influence of the TVA, and that’s it.

Is this truly the end for Loki? I’m honestly not sure, but if it is the end, it was very powerful. Perhaps on an even level with Iron Man’s sacrifice in Endgame.

Bits:

I loved how we did return to the moment where Loki and Sylvie faced off against He Who Remains, and this time Loki got the win. It was very satisfying.

Mobius finally getting to see his timeline, but to never be a part of it, was very bittersweet. What a wonderful performance from Owen Wilson.

I loved OB’s reaction to getting Miss Minutes back up and running, because it does feel like a potentially dangerous situation.

No after credits scene or any indication there would be more from this series.

It was interesting that He Who Remains knew about Victor Timely, and seemed somewhat angry and dismissive of him. Perhaps he knows that Victor is the best of himself and he hates that.

Quotes:

Mobius: "Most purpose is more burden than glory, and trust me, you never want to be the guy who avoids it, 'cause you can't live with the burden."
Loki: "How do you live with it?"
Mobius: "Scar tissue."

Loki: "We die with the dying. We're born with the dead."

Loki: "What good is free will if everyone's dead?"

Victor: “My Loom will never be able to accommodate for an infinitely growing multiverse. You can't scale for 'infinite.' It's like trying to divide by zero. It can't be done.”

Sylvie: "I grew up in apocalypses, Loki. I've lived through enough of them to know that sometimes, it's okay to destroy something."

Loki: "O.B., how long will it take me to know everything that you know about mechanics, physics and engineering?"
OB: "How much do you know?"
Loki: "Let's assume I don't know much. But I'm a fast learner... and I'm a god."
OB: “Decades.”
Victor: “Centuries.”

No matter how you feel about Loki's fate, this was a fantastic episode that really forced me to consider all the angles of such a final moment for a long running character.

4 out of 4 Friends Left Behind

Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.

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