Lokiis the most recentMCU series on Disney Plus, picking right up afterThe Avengers(2012) – or ratherAvengers: Endgame’s (2019) versionof the firstAvengers– when the eponymous God of Mischief (Tom Hiddleston) snatched the Tesseract/Space Stone and fled from the Avenger’s custody. So, the Loki landing in the Mongolian desert within “Glorious Purpose” is not the one we’ve seen develop and (partially) redeemed inThor: The Dark World(2013)andRagnarök(2017). Essentially,Lokihas erased the past decade for the vain-glorious villain, plucking him outside the timestream for diverting from his preordained path,for violating “continuity.”
Much ofLoki’s first episode is reintroducing viewers to this former version of Loki, still hung up on his “glorious purpose” and inevitable conquest of Midgard and, afterward, the whole Nine Realms. He even erroneously assumes the Avenger’s time-travel is a last-minute bid to reverse his ascension to God-King, the only future Loki can imagine. But the Time Variance Authority (TVA) don’t see it this way, processing Loki through their bureaucratic machinery as if he was any other prisoner. OnlyAgent Mobius (Owen Wilson) communicateswith Loki on an eye-to-eye level – other TVA officials generally raised above him – and Mobius is also trying to dismantle Loki’s posturing by interrogating his history.
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Mobius does this by showing clips of other MCU movies. But alongside catching audiences up on Loki’s character history, it also reminds them of Loki’s specific mindset fromThe Avengersand how the words twist and reverberate. Loki tells Mobius “the first and most oppressive lie ever uttered was the song of freedom,” explaining that free will makes others miserable. It’s the exact same attitude Loki toldNick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)after his grand entrance inThe Avengers, proclaiming he came “with glad tidings of a world made free… [from] Freedom. Freedom is life’s great lie.”
Later inThe Avengers, Loki lorded over a crowd in Germany and monologued how “It’s the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled.” This exact scene is shown inLoki, and Loki expands upon it as justification for authoritarianism. He explains to Mobius that “choice breeds shame and uncertainty and regret. There’s a fork in every road, yet the wrong path always taken.” Loki views himself as “saving” humanity by cultivating anderadicating the burden of choice.
The irony is, the TVA proves Loki right. But not in the way he wanted. Just as Loki wishes to control the agency of others, the TVA “prune” stray timelines or actions which haven’t been “sanctioned” by the Time Keepers. Mirroring Loki’s talk of “forks in the road” is the TVA’s imagery of chaotic branches splintering from the pure, straight “sacred timeline.” It is they who decree which choices are permissible and what futures are predestined. Loki is incensed that anybody except himself is responsible for his “birthright,” but finds himself subjugated to his own philosophy. His fallacy was thinking he was the exception to the rule who controlled and restricted the freedom of others, butLokiturns his words against him, swept inside an institution that actually controls the universe.
“Glorious Purpose” is built around humbling and humiliating Loki. As he’s captured by TVA Troopers his face rubbers around in comedic slow-motion, and once at their Headquarters his Asgardian leather is disintegrated off his body. Instead of summoning his magical weaponry, Loki is left with clenched empty hands and sniggers in his courtroom. Loki tries to act superior to the TVA and treat them as a pathetic circus without the authority to judge a God like himself, but it’s clear this is a coping mechanism. Instead, the Asgardian is left subsumed by an authority vaster than he can comprehend, even findingstray Infinity Stones– previously the most powerful objects in the MCU – so ubiquitous that they are being used as paperweights.
All of this breaks Loki’s hardened (and sometimes homicidal) outer shell to spot the insecurity underneath. This facet has always been part of the MCU’s Loki, back to this first appearanceinThor(2011)when he double-crossed his “biological” family of Frost Giants to “prove himself worthy” of hisadopted Asgardian family. Loki has always felt like an outcast, and overcompensates through manipulation and intimidation to try and gain “respect.” The attack he levels against the TVA – that it’s a “cruel elaborate trick, conjured by the weak, to inspire fear” – is revealed to be an analysis of himself.
Time travel storiesoften involve characters reckoning with their own cosmic significance (or lack thereof). Sometimes they reaffirm that every action and individual, however small, has an impact on reality. Sometimes they show people cannot break away from the predetermined paths of history. Only future episodes ofLokiwill tell which pathway it travels. After all, Loki has already undergone a redemption arc, but not quite in this context before. His circuitous journey allows the events ofThe Avengersto challenge his arrogance and authority, one paralleled by the TVA, which hopefully the show will further examine.
PerhapsLoki seeing how his future turns out, and being separate from the standard timeline, means he is truly unshackled from the choices imposing on his whole life, and he can finally act with true freedom. Unrestricted by anybody, including himself.
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