# Loki TV series discussion (spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** disney-hulu\ **Created:** [January 27, 2021, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625 "2021-01-27T18:06:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2021, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/281 "2021-06-24T19:55:00Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Sylvie explicitly has no memories of Frigga. Plus, if that were the case, she wouldn’t be an alternate version of Loki, she’d be an alternate version of the orphan girl that didn’t get adopted by Frigga in all the other timelines. Heck, we don’t even know Frigga was her mom. Though I think she’d say something if she wasn’t. Given how angry Odin got after she died, I hope he was a good dad to her. Heck, maybe she didn’t even grow up in Asgard. Also, isn’t Loki super-strong? Much stronger than a normal person, anyway. But he’s getting manhandled all over the place. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2021, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/282 "2021-06-24T20:21:39Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Heck, we don’t even know Frigga was her mom. Though I think she’d say something if she wasn’t. Given how angry Odin got after she died, I hope he was a good dad to her. Heck, maybe she didn’t even grow up in Asgard. I’m pretty sure that’s what @Miller was getting at - “Sylvie” is a variant from a timeline where Loki _wasn’t_ adopted by Odin and Frigga. She’s pretty clearly both contemptuous and envious of the fact that Loki was a prince, and it’s even clearer that she was _not_ a princess. So, I think it’s pretty clear that she wasn’t adopted by Odin. Since she seems to default to a “human” form, it seems probable she was adopted by Asgardians - just not by the King of Asgard. > [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Also, isn’t Loki super-strong? Much stronger than a normal person, anyway. But he’s getting manhandled all over the place. Yeah, I mentioned that upthread. His strength level has never been clearly established in canon, but he’s at least tough enough to take a thrashing from the Hulk with no serious injuries. He’s a shapeshifted frost giant, and we don’t really know what that means. Maybe in human form, he’s just unusually strong for his size, but not really superhuman, but is still superhumanly resilient? That seems consistent with what we’ve seen so far, but…his strength and physical prowess really seem inconsistent, and purely dependent on whether it works better for any given scene for him to be a conman/magician who’s physically outmatched, or a badass who’s a threat to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes all on his own. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2021, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/283 "2021-06-24T20:25:48Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Also, isn’t Loki super-strong? Much stronger than a normal person, anyway. But he’s getting manhandled all over the place. Well, so far he’s fought TVA Agents who have some control of time, people possessed by Sylvie who I’m assuming got her strength, and then these security guards. The guards look human, but we don’t really know what they are. There’s lots of aliens out there that look human (Kree, Asgardians) that are very strong. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2021, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/284 "2021-06-24T20:33:32Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Well, so far he’s fought TVA Agents who have some control of time, people possessed by Sylvie who I’m assuming got her strength, and then these security guards. The guards look human, but we don’t really know what they are. There’s lots of aliens out there that look human (Kree, Asgardians) that are very strong. IIRC, the date shown on screen when they arrive at Lamentis is 2070, which isn’t that far in the future, and Lamentis looked like it had been around for a while. It’s unlikely, but not impossible, that those are normal humans. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2021, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/285 "2021-06-24T21:56:29Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > My take is there’s one sacred timeline against which all others are measured. As long as the alternate timelines meet certain benchmarks and stay within a narrow range of possibilities, it’s “allowed” to continue. > > As to how she even exists…At some alternate point in the past Frigga adopted an orphan girl and raised her instead of Loki. It was this timeline that the TVA deemed inappropriate. That’s plausible, and probably in fact the only plausibility. That said, it doesn’t really fit with what we saw earlier, where Loki stole the tesseract, and was set upon by agents within minutes. (Granted, that could be handwaved away various ways). Nor does “actually there are infinite timelines, but they’re all similar to the sacred timeline, so we allow them to continue to exist, despite the fact that in one of them someone who is clearly central to extremely important events doesn’t exist at all.” doesn’t really fit with the TVA orientation material we saw. Whether the writers do in fact have a good explanation or whether they just like the “ooh, lots of variants of Loki, neat, what can we do with that idea without thinking about it too much?” remains to be seen. (Something else that remains to be cleared up: the TVA clearly thinks that Slyvie is a variant Loki. And while she seems irritated about the situation, she doesn’t seem to think that that claim is factually false. But she was clearly not raised by Frigga. Is she an ice giant orphan born at the same time Loki “should” have been born to the same bio parents, and that’s what makes her a Loki? Or was she raised by Odin and her brother was Thor, but in her timeline Frigga was out of the picture? Again, I do hope that the writers have an answer in mind other than just “she’s a variant of Loki, but, get this, she’s FEMALE, ooh, I just blew your mind” which is what it seems to be so far.) ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2021, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/286 "2021-06-24T22:21:52Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > “she’s a variant of Loki, but, get this, she’s FEMALE, ooh, I just blew your mind” which is what it seems to be so far.) Well, we haven’t gotten much info about Sylvie at all. Mobius is close lipped about her (at least as far as _we_ are concerned) And she is an unreliable narrator, herself. But, I’m intrigued by **Miller’s** theory of the unadopted frost giant foundling. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2021, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/287 "2021-06-24T22:32:19Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > But, I’m intrigued by **Miller’s** theory of the unadopted frost giant. From the transcript: > [@](#): > > Loki: My mother. > Sylvie: ( Scoffs ) What was she like? > Loki: She was, um… A Queen of Asgard. She was good. Purely decent. > Sylvie: ( Scoffs ) Are you sure she was your mother? > Loki: Oh, no, she’s not actually. I was adopted. Is that a bit of a spoiler for you? Sorry about that. > Sylvie: No, I knew I was adopted. > Loki: What? They told you? > Sylvie: Yeah. Did they not tell you? > Loki: No. I mean, they did, eventually. Hang on a second. So, tell… Tell me about your mother. > Sylvie: I barely remember her. Just blips of a dream at this point. Now, of course, this is Loki, God of Lies, and a variant Loki. But everything “our” Loki says is true, and fairly complete and unvarnished at that. So, Sylvie’s account is _probably_ trustworthy. She was definitely adopted, and knew she was adopted. It seems pretty clear to me from other contextual clues that she was raised as an Asgardian, just not as a princess of Asgard. Perhaps Odin in her timeline somehow wasn’t the King of Asgard (maybe she comes from a timeline where Hela ruled as Queen?). Or perhaps she was adopted by some other random Asgardian that accompanied Odin on his foray into Jotunheim. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2021, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/288 "2021-06-24T23:43:08Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > It _could_ be thousands of years. She’s not just a reality jumper, she’s a time traveler. She might be only a few centuries, or even a few decades, old on her own timeline. There’s no particular reason to think she’s the same age as “our” Loki. > > Although, then you get into issues of meta-time and simultaneity across different timelines in relation to a Limbo that exists outside of normal spacetime and…my head hurts… She referred to the memories of the TVA soldier she was controlling as being from “Earth hundreds of years ago” so if anything she is older than current Loki. Assuming they’d have to have been born at the same time to be the same person… frankly we are all just guessing here so who knows. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/289 "2021-06-25T02:32:22Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > So maybe this is clear to someone else, but how did Sylvie ever exist to begin with? So there’s one sacred timeline. In it, Loki is male, looks like Tom Hiddleston, is the adopted son of Odin, etc. There are a set of things he’s supposed to do over the course of his existence. If he does something “wrong”, he becomes a variant. And, as we saw, he is then tracked and presumably captured within minutes. Ignorance speaking ahead! I see this as the same Frost giant as “our” Loki who at the point “our” Loki settled on male this one did female. Still could be okay in timeline maybe but at some point early childhood did something, maybe some mischief, that got mom killed. That was the divergence that crossed the allowed line. And put her on the run. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/290 "2021-06-25T02:44:04Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > She referred to the memories of the TVA soldier she was controlling as being from “Earth hundreds of years ago” so if anything she is older than current Loki. The “current Loki” has been around since, at least, the Viking Age a millennium ago. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/291 "2021-06-25T10:32:17Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > The “current Loki” has been around since, at least, the Viking Age a millennium ago. Right, I figured both would have been born at the same time, but Sylvie’s current time is hundreds of years in our future. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/292 "2021-06-25T10:42:29Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > She referred to the memories of the TVA soldier she was controlling as being from “Earth hundreds of years ago” so if anything she is older than current Loki. Wouldn’t that only address how long ago that Variant was picked up and turned into a TVA agent? ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/293 "2021-06-25T10:46:13Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Wouldn’t that only address how long ago that Variant was picked up and turned into a TVA agent? I’m not sure that follows, from Sylvie’s perspective that was Earth hundreds of years ago but it was just current time Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/294 "2021-06-25T10:53:07Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > I’m not sure that follows, from Sylvie’s perspective that was Earth hundreds of years ago but it was just current time Earth. The TVA agent wasn’t from the year she was hiding out in, which also wasn’t the present day (it was 2049). ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/295 "2021-06-25T11:52:22Z")
But Sylvie said she was creating the fantasy from the TVA agent’s memories, from before she became a TVA agent, which were pretty clearly in the late 20th Century or early 21st Century. @DigitalC is saying that since Sylvie said that memory was from “hundreds of years ago”, and that memory was clearly from our present time (or within a few decades), Sylvie must be from hundreds of years in our future. I actually parsed that bit at the time as Sylvie saying that those memories were from hundreds of years ago within the _TVA agent’s_ personal timeline - that is, that the TVA agent had been an agent for hundreds of years, and before that had been an ordinary person on Earth. I’m not sure which way of parsing that is correct. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/296 "2021-06-25T12:16:09Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > I actually parsed that bit at the time as Sylvie saying that those memories were from hundreds of years ago within the _TVA agent’s_ personal timeline - that is, that the TVA agent had been an agent for hundreds of years, and before that had been an ordinary person on Earth. I’m not sure which way of parsing that is correct. In the context of explaining how enchantment works that’s the only meaning that makes sense. She had to go back through hundreds of years of the agent’s life memories to find one that was from before she was an agent. The agent though could have come from anytime future or past to when Sylvie was from. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/297 "2021-06-25T13:01:50Z")
> [@gdave](#): > > But Sylvie said she was creating the fantasy from the TVA agent’s memories, from before she became a TVA agent, which were pretty clearly in the late 20th Century or early 21st Century. @DigitalC is saying that since Sylvie said that memory was from “hundreds of years ago”, and that memory was clearly from our present time (or within a few decades), Sylvie must be from hundreds of years in our future. > > I actually parsed that bit at the time as Sylvie saying that those memories were from hundreds of years ago within the _TVA agent’s_ personal timeline - that is, that the TVA agent had been an agent for hundreds of years, and before that had been an ordinary person on Earth. I’m not sure which way of parsing that is correct. We don’t know when the TVA is. For all we know, it could be in the year 1 Million CE - or BCE. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/298 "2021-06-25T13:24:17Z")
Remember how confused Loki was about whether he was right to tell the Pompeii villagers that he was from “the future”. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/299 "2021-06-25T13:37:07Z")
He would be from the future, no matter when the TVA is. If you are on vacation and someone asks where you are from, you give your home city, not where you met your connecting flight. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625/300 "2021-06-25T13:43:19Z")
Loki says: “We are from the future, right? What is the TVA? I mean, it’s from the future. It sounds from the future. It’s pretty future-y.” which suggests to me that he’s wondering whether the TVA can be called “the future” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loki-tv-series-discussion-spoilers/931625.md?page=16)