#galaxythread

1- Loki stealing the Tesseract HAD to happen otherwise Endgame wouldn't

I need to confess I have only watched Endgame once, so I don’t remember exactly what happens in 1970 ^^. But I don’t think it’s relevant because I agree with the premise. Loki stealing the Tesseract had to happen so Endgame happens the way it does.

And no one ever said otherwise.

Judge Renslayer : “ What they did was supposed to happen. You escaping was not. “

The events of Endgame happened the way they were meant to and nothing has been retconned.

I suppose the reason why this lines confuses you is because you seem to assume the TVA operate under logical and “fair” rules. But it doesn’t. The TVA is a Kafka-esque hell where everything is meant to be as absurd and confusing as possible for the prisoners. Also, the TVA is entirely based on a lie. It lies to it’s agents, even the Judges don’t understand the laws they are applying. If it seems that nothing makes sense, it’s because at this point we know nothing of it’s real purpose and goals.

Also, this line by Renslayer sounds exactly like the paradox of Judas in theology. Jesus HAD to be betrayed to put God’s plan in motion, but Judas is still guilty of his action and deserves punishment. And the making off confirms the TVA is written as a religious cult, with its idols, its corrupted elites and its all powerful leader.

Basically, it’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

Now if you wonder what are the criteria : everything that helps the TVA to reach its mysterious goal is supposed to happen, and everything that hinders them has to be deleted. The Avengers beating Thanos ? Good. A mischievous Loki messing around with the Tesseract ? Less good.

The TVA’s true goal has not been officially revealed yet because it seems season 2 will dive deep into its origins, but Michael Waldron confirmed a few fan theories. The main goal is to prevent the existance of Kang. The only requirement for a timeline to be kept is that it has to be Kang-less. We can assume if Thanos hadn’t been defeated, it would have caused a butterfly effect that would have left to Kang’s great great grandparents meeting, or something silly like that. Meanwhile, Steve Rogers was allowed to stay in the past because it doesn’t cause the birth of a Kang. It seems the Sacred Timeline is relatively permissive for ordinary poeple, as long as they don’t accidentally cause the creation of a Kang.

2- Sylvie and Loki holding hands in episode 4 was in an apocalypse, ergo, no nexus 

Yeah, this one is a plothole. I guess it’s a classic situation of “the magic of love is so powerful it defies logics”. It’s cheesy and a bit dumb, but this is a Disney kids show.

3. Sylvie being a girl doesn't work as a nexus event because loki is genderfluid

Nothing in the show even hints it could be the case. Little Sylvie was about 10 years old when she was pruned, and neither Mobius or Renslayer or our main Loki seem surprised by the existance of a female Loki. The only one surprised is Classic Loki, a character who literally comes from a 60s comic book. It’s like those jokes about the First Doctor being sexist in Doctor Who crossover events.

Even in the comics, female presenting Lokis, AFAB or AMAB, seem pretty rare (I've never heard of a confirmed AFAB Loki in the comics, but I don't see why there wouldn't be any. Maybe Double Trouble Loki ?). I am not the biggest expert in the continuity of the comics though and I don't know how many distinct versions of Loki exist so I'm talking a bit lightly here.

And the Goddess of Mischief line you quoted in your post feels a bit out of context.

Sylvie : “The universe wants to break free, so it manifests chaos. Like me being born the Goddess of Mischief. And as soon as that created a big enough detour from the Sacred Timeline, the TVA showed up, erased my reality, and took me prisoner.“

The topic of this conversation is order and chaos. The key word is “Mischief”, not “Goddess”. What Sylvie seems to explain here is that the existance of Lokis is a proof that the universe needs chaos. And since Lokis get pruned far more often than average, she’s right about it. Also, the phrase “as soon as it created a big enough detour” would not work if it was about gender. Unless she is AMAB and the “detour” was her transitioning (but nothing suggests little Sylvie just started presenting that way). That would be a really cool plot twist, but I’m not sure Disney is ready.

Also, having variants of another gender doesn’t prove an individual is genderfluid. The crew saying that our MCU Loki is genderfluid means little if it doesn’t lead to a confirmation in canon. This is shallow queerbaiting and genderfluid poeple deserve better.

There is one way her gender could play a role in her Nexus event though : she got arrested for playing with a Valkyrie figure. The most popular theory is that she was about to become a Valkyrie herself, something a male Loki would be less likely to do. But since she got arrested at the age of 10, there is at least one other Loki out there with Sylvie’s face who lived her life as needed by the TVA.

4. The TVA forgot about Sylvie's master plan by epi 4

I don’t see how ???

Sylvie’s plan was to cause a distraction so she could access to the Time Keepers chamber, and it worked. Loads of agents were dispatched to prevent the disaster. I’m not really sure how you deactivate a Reset Charge. By pruning it probably. But what happens when a Reset Charge activates in the Void ? Wow, this is the Portals paradox again ^^.

I’m not sure how putting Reset Charges at specific places endangers the timeline though. I would say it erases specific events from time and causes the risk that they happen differently when time heals itself, but this is pure speculation.

Also the TVA is still very actively searching for Sylvie :

ANALYST 1: There’s nothing, sir.

MOBIUS: Even with the magnified nexus threshold? That one should be setting off alarms if somebody steps on the wrong leaf.

The whole agency is working on monitoring every single timeline with accute algorythms to find the two fugitives. That’s how big of a deal Sylvie and Loki are to them.

5. people shouldn't be able to make choices (nexuses) because there is no free will

The answer is very simple though : if there was no free will, there would be no need for a TVA.

There is no way to remove a person’s free will, except by extreme brainwashing or hypnosis, like what happened to Bucky. But it’s not how the TVA operates. Even under the most severe authoritarian regime, poeple keep their free will and capacity to make choices, at least inside their head. And the fact the TVA needs to constantly police the entirety of time proves poeple have a mind of their own.

Also, the use of the word “pruning” says everything. Those darn timelines won’t stay inert for more than a few minutes before a new sprout starts growing somewhere.

6. there has never been ANYONE with mind powers to face Alioth before Sylvie

Ok, this one made me smile because it had never crossed my mind. I think the idea of reading inside the mind of a giant dragon shaped cloud is absurd enough to be a once in a lifetime experience. But It made me think about the whole chain of events that lead to that moment.

First, one would not immediately assume Alioth is sentient enough to have a mind to read. Also, if I was on the run from a giant-ass dragon the side of a small country, I would probably run in the opposite direction. The only reason why the idea crossed Sylvie’s mind is because she accidentally touched one of its tendrils and survived it. Which must be a pretty rare occurence too.

But let’s imagine a mind reader accidentally touched the dragon and had a mental flash of a big castle. What would they do of this information ? If they had been pruned recently, they wouldn’t even know where they are or what this is all about. Sylvie came to the Void with a purpose. She knows where he is (in a dimension at the end of time) and she knows what she is looking for (some sort of king hiding beyond the end of time). So she makes the mental connection that the dragon knows how to access the castle.

And yeah, the number one rule to survive in the Void is to hide and avoid the big dragon at all cost.

Oh, and Kang absolutely wanted to be found. He even admitted he helped Loki and Sylvie (a popular theory is that he’s the one who alerted the TVA for Lamentis). Remember that all of this was part of his plan ! It’s like in The Matrix, Neo and Trinity are not a bug, they’re a feature.

7. loki consistently forgetting he has magic

I agree, the magic system in the MCU makes little sense. I don’t think Loki uses his magic less in the show. I think he uses it far more than he did in movies. We see him shapeshift, dry his clothes, lift a freaking building with his mind (wow, that was really badass !). I don’t know if magic can produce electricity . I suppose it does, Kid Loki has to power his Polybius game arcade with something ^^.

8. The tva has no solar power for anything (like tempads, like Sylvie's)

I don’t think the TVA has a sun to begin with ^^. Have you seen those guys ? They look like they have never touched grass in their lives ! They don’t even have aquariums :,( !

More seriously, we never saw TVA agents on the field for more than a few minutes, and they’re never alone so even if one had a faulty tempad, it would not endanger them.

Also, TVA tech is extremely obsolete. I don’t think solar power fits the whole mid-century cold war era vibe.

And you overestimate Sylvie’s intellect I think ^^. I’m not saying she’s an idiot, but she’s also kinda dumb. More seriously, her plan was completely whack. She ran right into the den of the wolf with almost no preparation. She could have asked C-20 more questions, or enchant more agents. She didn’t even know magic doesn’t work in the TVA. It’s very in line with Sylvie’s character, she’s impulsive and never thinks in the long term. Not charging her tempad is 100% Sylvie behaviour.

9. rather than kill anyone, Kang decided to make a big void they would all go to

“When we prune a branched reality, it’s impossible to destroy all of its matter. So we move it to a place on the timeline where it won’t continue growing.“

I’m not sure how the Grandmaster’ weapon works, or if there is any form of continuity inside the MCU when it comes to the laws of physics. But for the sake of the argument, I’ll assume the Grandmaster’s weapon dissipates your atoms in the air.

Pruning isn’t disintegrating. When a timeline is pruned, a small area is restored to it’s previous state. It’s a bit like turning your game off so you can start from your previous save (unless you’re playing old Animal Crossing and the local time agent mole yells at you for 10 minutes. Yeah, I hate that dude ^^). But it creates some “residual” events that have to be destroyed in some way. Like a bit of tape cut from a movie and replaced by another one.

Once a small section of a timeline has been removed, it has to be destroyed in some way. The Void is the junkyard and Alioth is the big racoon feeding on the junk.

Though, I agree that the TVA could kill poeple first and prune them later. But I think pruning poeple alive says a lot about the cruel and dehumanizing nature of the organization. The upper-crust would rather throw poeple in the trash alive than soil their hands. I don’t think the common agents know what pruning really is, though. They probably think they desintegrate poeple.

10. removing someone from a timeline creates a long-standing butterfly effect

“Reset charges prune the affected radius of a branched timeline, allowing time to heal all its wounds. Which sounds like a nice way of saying disintegrate everything in its vicinity.”

A reset charge prunes everything on a small zone. That’s why agents have to watch out for the red line. Once the Nexus event has spread too much, the timeline cannot be reset anymore.

I’ll try to think of an exemple. When Loki arrived in the desert after stealing the Tesseract, he meets some locals. If the TVA had not intervened, we can assume those poeple would have spread the word and it would have had consequences. The TVA arrived right before it happened and reset this small patch of desert to how it was before Loki arrived, sending the witnesses into the void. We can also assume they reset the Stark Tower lobby, to restore OG Loki and erase all memories from the Avengers’ mind.

I assume they can probably prune a larger zone using several reset charges, or a bigger one. But once the butterfly effect is too important, nothing can be done anymore. Also the TVA’s methods seem to imply they try to cut as little as possible, probably to avoid causing more instability.

Loki : Let me ask you this, why don’t we just travel back to before the attack, when the Variant first arrives?

Mobius : Nexus events destabilize the time flow. This branch is still changing and growing, so you gotta show up in real time.

The TVA doesn’t remove poeple from reality. It only removes one “instance” of a person. When someone is pruned, it’s like they’ve been duplicated and their “original self” is still on the timeline. The little cartoon PSA in episode one illustrates it very well. And this one trippy scene in Quantumania ^^. As our TVA Loki is taken away by the Minute Men, OG Loki is being taken to Asgard.

So no, a Reset Charge cannot remove a whole existing timeline. When Sylvie says her reality has been erased, it doesn’t mean her whole timeline disappeared in the Void. Somewhere, a little princess Loki decided to play with the dragon toy instead of the Valkyrie and fulfilled her approved destiny and caused the Avengers to assemble. But this reality is not Sylvie’s reality anymore. It is a similar looking Asgard where her parents have another little girl who look like her and forgot her mere existance.

In a sense you were right in your question. Changing one little element causes a butterfly effect that prevents future events from happening, therefor destroying a whole potential world. Also, remember the TVA exists out of linear time. Those realities are not just potential, at some point in the TVA's relative past, they were actual timelines full of unique poeple and civilisations. The TVA snuffed them from existance by removing one single event.

And the TVA trials are useful. Everyone at the TVA is a Variant so I assume they have to recruit their agents one way or another ^^. Interestingly, Renslayer condemned Loki to be reset, not pruned. I wonder if the TVA already recruited Lokis. Plot twist, Casey was a Loki all along XD.

I really hoped I answered to some of your questions. I apologize for this wall of text ^^. I really tried to explain everything the best I could, based on interviews, and what I got from canon. Of course I could be wrong ^^. We simply don’t know enough.

But the leaked trailer for season 2 seems to confirm we’ll learn a lot about the TVA. And of course there are the good old insider leaks, to take with a pinch of salt.