He Who Remains Was Right, Loki and Sylvie Should Run the Multiverse

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Loki Season 2 Episode 4.

The Big Picture

• Loki and Sylvie are slowly finding common ground in Season 2 and working together despite their differences, indicating that they might be effective partners in running the multiverse.
• He Who Remains manipulated events to bring Loki and Sylvie to him in Season 1 and offered them the opportunity to take his place running the TVA and protecting the Sacred Timeline.
• Loki’s desire for order and Sylvie’s skepticism towards the TVA’s actions create a balance in their perspectives, making them well-suited to compromise and prevent extreme ideologies from dominating the multiverse.

Since the end of Loki Season 1 Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), have been haunted by the consequences of their confrontation with He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors). For much of Season 2 the schism between them has remained large, despite Loki’s best efforts to repair their relationship, although the most recent episodes have shown them making incremental progress in finding common ground. Whether they like it or not, both the contrasts and similarities between them make them an effective team and suggest that He Who Remains might have been right about one thing: they should work together to take his place running the multiverse.

In Season 1 Loki first encountered Sylvie, a female variant of him from another timeline, while she was waging war against the Time Variance Authority, which he had been coerced into working for. During a fight he teleported them both to Lamentis-1, unaware that that moon was about to be destroyed in an apocalyptic catastrophe. He and Sylvie worked together to survive and while their alliance was at first only begrudging, they soon discovered that despite the differences in their personal timelines they also had a lot in common and began to forge a connection that eventually progressed towards romance. Working together, they also discovered the lies inherent in the TVA. Eventually, they made it to the end of time, where they confronted He Who Remains, a variant of Kang the Conqueror, who was the true architect of the TVA.

What Was He Who Remains’ Offer to Loki and Sylvie?

He Who Remains explained that eons ago when the multiverse existed a devastating war broke out between the assorted Kang variants. He took control of the matter-consuming monster known as Alioth and used it to end the conflict, reduced the multiverse down to one so-called “Sacred Timeline”, and created the TVA to police it, preventing other universes from branching off into existence, which he said would lead to another multiversal war between the other Kangs. He also revealed that he had manipulated events purposely to lead Loki and Sylvie to him. He stated that he was “older” and “tired” and wanted them to take his place, directing the TVA and protecting the Sacred Timeline.

The offer led to a split in the alliance between the pair. Loki showed his newfound heroism by being concerned about the threat the other Kangs could pose to the innocent people of the multiverse, but Sylvie believed the whole story was just another of He Who Remains’ manipulations and remained set on killing him. When Loki tried to stop her from doing so, she accused him of reverting to his old villainous ways and trying to grab power, which hurt Loki deeply. When Sylvie asked “Why aren’t we seeing this the same way?” Loki replied, “Because you can’t trust, and I can’t be trusted.” After kissing him, Sylvie shoved him through a time portal back into the TVA and killed He Who Remains, which really did lead to the creation of an assortment of new timelines, restoring the multiverse and reigniting the threat of the other Kangs, as seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

‘Loki’ Season 2 Shows He Who Remains Might Have Been Right

In Season 2 Loki has been working with remaining TVA agents to try to bring some order to the chaotic new multiverse. Sylvie eventually joined him but at first only did so to prevent the timeline she had started a new life in from being erased by rogue TVA General Dox (Kate Dickie) and her forces. Despite working with them, Sylvie has remained critical of the TVA for both its past and current actions, but, as Loki has repeatedly pointed out, they are the only people with the knowledge and skills necessary to shepherd the multiverse through the current crisis safely. In Season 2 Episode 4, they finally seemed to make some serious progress in getting back on the same page, with Sylvie reluctantly accepting that the TVA might be necessary, at least at the current moment. However, she remained doubtful of the decision to give Kang variant Victor Timely knowledge of the organization and dubious about the possibility of the TVA making long-term reforms. She told Loki, “It seems like whatever we do, we’re playing God.” While her holding on to her grudge against the TVA even after everything might at first make her seem immature and stubborn her consistent questioning of the morals of manipulative actions is an important counterpoint to Loki’s perspective and emphasizes what seems to be one of the season’s major points, that being that as cruel and immoral as he was He Who Remains might have been right to pick Loki and Sylvie as his possible successors. Their radically different pasts have given them opposite opinions on a lot of the issues related to protecting the multiverse, but that’s precisely why them doing so together is such a good idea. The combination of their contrasting views and their genuine affection for one another makes them able to compromise, ensuring that neither one can push their own ideology too far into extremes.

It may not seem like it given how much destruction he’s caused in the past and his title of God of Mischief, but Loki’s desire for order is actually a long-standing part of his character that was even demonstrated back when he was a villain. In the first Thor film his ultimate goal was to eliminate his own biological species, the Frost Giants of Jotunheim. He mostly did this to gain the love and approval of his parents that he thought he didn’t have and to appear like a heroic king to Asgard, but it seemed like being raised to view the Frost Giants as enemies had also made him genuinely believe that the universe would be safer and more peaceful without them. Likewise, when he started his invasion of Earth in The Avengers he declared that he wanted to free humanity from freedom, telling Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) that, “Freedom is life’s great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart, you will know peace.” Obviously, those views are pretty twisted, and ultimately they didn’t motivate Loki as much as more primal emotions like jealousy did, but they do show where his current tendency to push for order, even at the expense of some freedom, has come from. His reply to Sylvie that they are gods shows that on some level he still believes that his Asgardian heritage and abilities mean that he should be in a position of authority. While at first this might seem like a disturbing indication that he hasn’t redeemed himself as fully as some may have thought it actually highlights how much he has changed. While in the past Loki used his godhood to justify the idea that he was entitled to rule because he thought he was inherently better than other people now he recognizes that his unique abilities make him capable of defending the public, obligating him to do so. It’s a very well-written and nuanced evolution of the character that emphasizes why he is so endlessly compelling.

The reasons for Sylvie’s current beliefs are much more obvious, partially because her story so far is so much shorter than Loki’s. Her history is the prime example of everything that was wrong with the TVA under He Who Remains’ leadership. She was abducted from the timeline when she was just a child and was set to be pruned before she escaped, all because she was supposedly destined to cause a Nexus event the specifics of which the agent in charge of the operation, Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) didn’t even remember. This forced her to spend her life on the run, hiding in apocalypses until she was ready to take her ruthless revenge. The fact that all of that actually happened because He Who Remains wanted to set her on the path to meeting him just further underlines how cruel his methods, and by extension the TVA’s, were. These experiences make Sylvie instrumental to efforts to genuinely reform the TVA. Her knowledge of what the organization did in the past will make her fight to ensure it uses more humane tactics in the future.

What Is in Loki and Sylvie’s Future?

Loki and Sylvie working as co-heads of the TVA would bring the right mix of order and freedom to the multiverse. With his new heroic responsibility Loki recognizes the need to monitor for potential threats and occasionally to use questionable tactics against them, while Sylvie will always be ready to prevent him or any of the other agents from going down the extreme, authoritarian path of He Who Remains. Neither of them, especially not Sylvie, would really be happy about taking on the positions, but there is a silver lining to them doing so. Constantly working together would force them to work out many of the personal issues between them, which may in turn allow them to actually pursue the romance they’d both clearly be interested in but so far haven’t been able to make work. More and more it seems like the pair of them taking over for He Who Remains may be the perfect bittersweet ending for their stories.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean that ending will be coming any time soon. Loki producer Kevin R. Wright described how the series’ first two seasons were conceived as chapters in a book that closes with Season 2 but clarified that “there are many other books on the shelf for this character and this world.” Twelve years after his debut Loki remains one of the MCU’s most popular characters with Hiddleston still seemingly passionate about the role and Sylvie is still relatively new to the franchise, and hasn’t yet appeared in a project outside Loki. Long-running stories are what make the MCU what it is, so it’s unlikely either character will be permanently retired yet.

Loki Season 1 and 2 is streaming on Disney+.

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