Loki

The Glorious Purpose of Marvel Studio’s Loki Series

Beneath the compelling world-building lies a central philosophical question about free will

“The first and most oppressive lie ever uttered was the song of freedom. For nearly every living thing, choice breeds shame and uncertainty and regret. There is a fork in every path, yet the wrong path is always taken.” ~ Loki

The third in Marvel Studios’ television series after WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki could prove to be the best one yet.

Like most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) better entries, Loki bears, even requires, repeated viewing in order to grasp the links to the movies and television series that came before it, as well as the possible connections to the ones that will come after. Based on Episode 1 (entitled “Glorious Purpose” after one of Loki’s most famous quotes”), the series offers tantalizing promise as a major jump-off point for Phase 4, where multiverses look set to collide in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

However, even without the links to Phase 4, Loki looks to be an entertaining and thoughtful show. I had great fun rewatching the first episode just to figure out the references to pop culture, both the ones intended by the writers as well as other associations that I could not shake off. There were also echoes of philosophical discussions often found in science fiction, in particular, that of fate versus free will.

World-Building: The Time Variance Authority (TVA)

Episode 1 of the series spends much of its time building the TVA world, by far the most intriguing element of the show. The TVA in the Loki series is said to be inspired by Blade Runner’s Tyrell Corporation. I certainly saw that in the Tyrell Corporation and the TVA’s roles in creating bioengineered beings, namely the replicants and the Minutemen respectively. Beings that are supposed to follow their makers’ orders without question.

The difference is that whereas the Tyrell Corporation always came across as cold and sinister, the TVA evokes more ambivalent feelings.

On the one hand, there is definitely something sinister about the TVA. Though purporting to protect the multiverse from time variances, there are signs that the TVA is not the benign entity it claims to be. The totalitarian overtones of the TVA are too unsubtle to be missed:

The slavish obedience to authority as represented by the three shadowy Time Keepers (one of whom might eventually become Kang the Conqueror).
The rote recitation of propaganda, such as the TVA’s mission to “protect the sacred timeline”.
The fascist-looking uniforms (black, of course) of the Minutemen, engineered clones who serve as the TVA’s enforcers.
The TVA posters that are found everywhere in the building. There was at least one featuring an eye of sorts that would not look out of place in George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.

However, there is also a lightness to the TVA because of the comedic nature of its bureaucracy. Loki is subject to a trio of hapless bureaucrats shortly after arriving at the TVA: an archivist who demands that Loki sign a continually growing transcript of everything he ever said; a guard who puts him through a metal detector to determine if he is a robot (and telling Loki that the machine will melt him from within if he is); and an attendant who insists that Loki take a ticket to join the line to see the judge (and disintegrates a spoilt brat who did not take a ticket). It is the same subversive tone that Office Space and more recently The Good Place had popularized.

The paradoxical nature of the TVA extends to the curious juxtaposition of old and new technology in the TVA. We get a glimpse of the futuristic world outside the TVA building (called the Null-Time Zone in the comics), complete with flying cars (as flying cars remain the one feature that allows us to immediately conclude that a place is indeed very futuristic). Within the TVA building, however, the technology is older, even anachronistic. I hope that the 1960s Mad Men vibe, with typewriters, dot matrix printers, and movie projectors found all over the TVA, will be more than a stylistic choice and carry significance that will be revealed in time.

Part of the fun in closely studying the TVA is to discover the direct and indirect influences of pop culture and science fiction. I was reminded of every time-traveling classic from Back to the Future to Terminator to Hot Tub Time Machine to Doctor Who. I am inspired to watch The Adjustment Bureau again, given how much the Minutemen reminded me of the time-traveling Bureau agents, minus the fancy hats.

Premise: Time-Traveling Buddy Cop Procedural?

Episode 1 is setting the Loki series up to be a combination of time travel, buddy action-comedy, and possibly a cop procedural (as the TVA investigates “Nexus Events”) rolled into one.

The success and failure of the series will depend in no small part on the chemistry between Tom Hiddleston’s Loki and Owen Wilson’s incredibly named Agent Mobius M. Mobius. The two previously shared the screen in 2011’s Midnight in Paris, which was based on a time-travel conceit as well. Hiddleston also has a hilarious history of imitating Owen Wilson at their first meeting on Midnight in Paris (on The Graham Norton Show in 2016) and this brilliant take of Wilson as Loki (back in 2013).

There is great promise in the Loki-Mobius relationship. Despite Loki being the title character of the series, he is the upstart in the TVA world. Loki might be closer to the companion than the Time Lord himself, who in this case would be the world-weary TVA Agent Mobius. The dynamic was reportedly inspired in part by that between Tom Hanks and Leonard DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can. Owen Wilson is of course no stranger to a buddy action-comedy, having been part of the Shanghai Noon films with Jackie Chan. However, it was a rich surprise to see him deliver the laughs without having to tell a joke or resort to some sort of visual gag.

However, the series is more than a two-hander. Virtually all the characters in the first episode had some opportunity to show their comedic chops, providing the show with a greater range of humor than WandaVision or The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Mobius (like this viewer) was positively giddy when when he uses the projector to show a clip that reveals Loki as D.B. Cooper. Loki explains that he had to hijack the plane after losing a bet with Thor. (Note: This segment is yet another nod to Mad Men, whose fans came up with a conspiracy theory that Don Draper would go on to become D.B. Cooper.)
Miss Minutes, the mascot for the TVA, who explains the rules of the TVA in a hilarious video animated in the style of Hanna Barbera’s The Flintstones and The Jetsons.
Hunter B-15, who takes great pleasure at tormenting Loki, from taking the first punch in the Gobi Desert to introducing Loki to the time-twisting remote control.
Ravonna Renslayer, the judge at the TVA’s trial of Loki. Her explanation of her role to “dictate the proper flow of time according to (the Time Keepers’) dictations” will likely go down as a bureaucratic classic.
Casey the office drone, played by Eugene Cordero (Pillboi from The Good Place). An absolute scene-stealer, responsible for calling the Tesseract “dumb” and not knowing what a fish is (having spent his entire life behind a desk). His explanation that “I want to know what I’m being threatened with before I comply” is going to be my new mantra.

Loki’s Character Development

“I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.” ~ Loki in The Avengers

The biggest problem with the MCU has always been its colorless villains, especially those of the intergalactic variety. The likes of Malekith (Thor: The Dark World), Laufey (Thor), Ronan (Guardians of the Galaxy), Dormammu (Doctor Strange), and Ego (Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2) were rather interchangeable. Even Thanos was pretty one-dimensional in the greater scheme of things.

Loki was always an exception to this, despite his relatively limited screen time over six movies. Loki has established himself not so much as a villain of the conventional variety but more of an anti-hero (think Prince Hamlet or Jay Gatsby) who pretty much redeems himself by the end of Thor: Ragnarok and The Avengers: Infinity War.

Nowhere is Loki’s heroic status in the MCU more obvious than the decision to grant Tom Hiddlestone his first shirtless scene after 10 years in the MCU. This is an honor traditionally reserved for the heroes of the MCU (with the notable exception of Michael B. Jordan in Black Panther but those pecs speak for themselves). Or it could just be a concession to fans who have been clamoring for a gratuitous shirtless scene by Loki. I can only hope though that he will be dressed in something more flattering than that prison jumpsuit in episode 2.

And since we are objectifying bodies, a little Easter egg in Episode 1 sees Loki essentially being outed. The TVA’s file on him lists his sex as “fluid”, which is in line with the comics’ canonical depiction of Loki as pansexual. I would not hold out too much hope of a substantial storyline on Loki’s sexuality in the series. There is already too much to squeeze into the remaining five episodes. Furthermore, Kevin Feige said back in 2019 that Valkyrie will be the MCU’s first LGBTQ superhero, likely in Thor: Love and Thunder (scheduled to be released next year).

There is reason to expect that Loki’s character will be developed more fully in the series, which provides Loki and Tom Hiddleston with a bigger playground but without a few of his familiar toys.

TVA provides Loki with a whole new universe to play in. The time travel element alone will afford opportunities limited only by the imagination. It would be interesting to see if Loki is responsible for any other urban legends aside from D.B. Cooper.
This is a completely different Loki as an emasculated Asgardian god. His powers have been nullified in the TVA. He doesn’t even have his usual blades. His intellect will be his main weapon, as I doubt his charm will work on the Time Keepers, the Agents, the Hunters, or the Minutemen the way it did with the Grandmaster.
Loki gets to reckon with both his past and his future. In his first conversation with Mobius, Loki delivers a defiant monologue on the futility of choice. However, after witnessing the formidability of the TVA (demonstrated by how TVA drones use Infinity Stones as paperweights) and viewing footage from his non-variant life, including the deaths of Frigga and Odin and finally his death at the hands of Thanos, Loki admits that his act was an “illusion conjured by the weak”. This is about as vulnerable as we have seen Loki.
There is an unknown number of Loki variants out there. Will they all be played by Tom Hiddleston? (Can they bring Matt Damon in as one of the variants?) I would love to see Tom as Lady Loki.

Loki’s journey will be central to the series. However, it may not be that important to the bigger story of MCU Phase 4. Episode 1, and the TVA animated video in particular, make several references to the Multiverse, madness, and Nexus Events. These are the Infinity Stones of Phase 4. Perhaps, as Ravonna Renslayer said to Loki at his trial, “it is not your story; it never was”.

Final Thoughts

Episode 1 teases philosophical questions that I would love to see explored more deeply throughout the rest of the series.

The biggest one is a classic, the role of fate versus agency, free will, and choice.

The Time Keepers and the TVA oversee, police, and enforcing the master plan for the universe, eliminating variances and pruning timelines. They represent fate and destiny in a way that is not too dissimilar from Thanos repeatedly pronouncing that he is inevitable.

The Avengers, on the other hand, are largely about the power of agency. Nowhere is this demonstrated more starkly than their collective determination to undo Thanos’ snap in Infinity War and Endgame. However, this is also in pursuit of the 1-in-14 million scenario that Doctor Strange saw using the Time Stone. Can the Avengers be said to have acted out of free will then?

For the Loki series, the question of free will could come in many forms.

Has Loki truly accepted his fate in the TVA? His comments at the end of Episode 1 suggest so, but that would seem out of character. Does he have something up his sleeve? Could his “illusion of the weak” be an illusion to trick Mobius and the TVA enforcers?
How do fate and free will factor when it comes to the Loki variants? If the TVA is seeking to eliminate the Loki variants, it would suggest that the Lokis are acting according to their free will.
The question of free will applies to the Minutemen as well. Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot has laid a well-worn path of robots developing consciousness and self-awareness and rising against their masters. Loki asks two potentially meaningful questions early on. One, are there a lot of people who do not know that they are robots? Two, what would happen if Loki himself were a robot but he didn’t know it. The TVA enforcers do seem aware that they are bioengineered. However, one would suspect that they never had the opportunity to contemplate the concepts of free will and choice. I am therefore curious to see how the TVA figures (Mobius, Ravonna Renslayer, Hunter B-15, and perhaps even Casey) respond to prolonged exposure to Loki. Will they start questioning the system created by the Time Keepers? Will a conflict start to brew within the TVA?

There are lots of questions and few answers. I doubt that the Loki series will try to answer many of them. Marvel Studios will probably try to save their powder for the upcoming cinematic releases. Nevertheless, it will make the rest of the series not only entertaining but intellectually stimulating to watch.