There’s an accidental spoiler that challenges that conclusion. It’s in the foreign-language credits of Ep 2.
One language credit accidentally gives a name to the Variant, and it isn’t “Loki”. In fact, it’s the name of another character from the comics entirely, abeit one with a lot of Loki interaction.
(Not my discovery; I saw it in some random Youtube about Ep 2, but it’s pretty interesting.)
To me, it’s been obvious that this is exactly what happened, ever since I saw Endgame, and it took me months to grok that anybody could see it as happening any other way. Cap went back in time, to “get a life” with Peggy. He/they continued to be Big Damn Hero(es), and used Steve’s knowledge of the future to avert the atrocities that happened in the Sacred Timeline, and turned that divergent timeline into, as you said, a “God-damn utopia.” Then, after Peggy passed, he put the final stone back where it belonged, thereby collapsing the divergent timeline, and putting everything back like it’s supposed to be.
As to why the TVA let him get away with it? Because he’s Captain Fucking America, that’s why. And he gave them his word that he would set things right, and they believed him.
That sorta strikes me as more monstrous than Thanos’ plan—after all, he only intended to kill half the universe, but this effectively destroys a complete reality. I can more readily imagine that Cap decided to become a house-husband for the remainder of his life than that he’d first allow to come into being, then annihilate untold trillions of beings for the sake of his own happily ever after.
Was it really real if it wasn’t supposed to happen and in the end didn’t? Sounds more like the destruction of a hypothesis. (Or, in other words, time travel is nonsensical. 
)
Two episodes in, and I’m enjoying this show waaaay more than I did Falcon and Winter Soldier and WandaVision. Primarily because Hiddleston is just such a fantastic actor – perfect casting for Loki.
I’m not a huge Owen Wilson fan, but he’s nailing this performance, in my opinion. He reminds me a lot of Wynn Duffy from Justified, both in looks and mannerisms (including speech patterns). The interplay between him and Hiddleston is great.
Given how much the smart guys in the main timeline have managed to accomplish, you’d maybe think that thinkers in the “utopia” timeline would ably get to work on solving the, y’know, “collapsing” problem.
Except the people in that timeline weren’t “hypothetical,” they were real people with feelings, thoughts, hopes, etc. etc. If you do something to “collapse” that timeline, then everyone in it stops existing. I don’t really see how that’s different from just murdering them. I don’t think you can get around that by arguing, “Well, they were never supposed to exist in the first place, so it doesn’t matter what happens to them.”
The ethical solution is that all timelines continue to exist, even if some of them are no longer accessible from the others. Even any hellish, evil ones created by (for instance) Thanos, Malkeith or Evil Loki exist somewhere out there, but you can’t get to them, so they effectively have been destroyed. Ditto the utopias.
But I have a strange feeling that is not the solution the TVA (or the MCU) are adopting. Time travel where entire universes wither and die because they are ‘wrong’, is unethical time travel.
The tricky part is that they didn’t happen. Or, to put it another way, when a timeline is pruned, it never occurred.
Let’s use a show analogy. When a show is produced, the director records many takes of some scenes. There might even be some rewrites and reshoots. All that footage goes to the editor, who then cuts and combines them into a final product. The unused footage simply never happened within the context of that show. That footage is simply hypothetical versions of what could have happened, but never did.
When the TVA prunes timelines, it’s simply editing away unused versions of reality.
I’m being somewhat of a devil’s advocate here. I don’t really believe this argument, but I don’t think it can be simply dismissed. It also makes for an interesting philosophical discussion. Are multiverses equally real? What does real even mean when talking about multiverses?
Edited to add: how many times can one use “simply”? Answer: simply too many.
Were they?
Depending on the timeline splinter in question, many people would have nearly the same life, if not a wholly identical life, in both timelines. So are you really killing a person? If the version of me where some guy was late to work ends - while the version of me where that guy was on time goes on, both versions have (up to that point - and probably beyond) the same history, feelings, hopes, dreams thoughts… I’m not sure that’s actually killing me.
Multiverse ethics are odd.
It’s not killing you, but it’s definitely killing them.
If someone showed up at your door and said, “Hey, turns out you’re an illegal clone. We’re going to have to kill you. But don’t worry, we got the original right here to take your house and all your stuff. Nobody will know the difference.” Would you just be like, “Okay, fair play. Do I have to sign something?”
A clone is an artificial twin, a separate individual person. A timeline that’s pruned has possibilities that never come to fruition.
Let’s say I imagine myself eating a ham sandwich for lunch tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, I eat a tuna sandwich. Have I killed my ham-sandwich-eating self?
No. However, if you invent a time machine, travel to the alternate reality where you ate a ham sandwich, and shoot your ham-sandwich-eating-self in the head, then yes.
That is the crux of the issue. Are the alternate timelines alternate realities or alternate hypotheticals? It’s not clear to me. What is the reasoning to call the alternate timelines “real”?
What if, after eating the ham sandwich, his timeline just ends? No death, just nothing? The timeline has been “pruned” from going any further.
I wonder if this Loki variant (I mean the protagonist of this series; the one played by Tom Hiddleston) will be allowed to continue existing at the conclusion of the series, or if he’ll be pruned. I would very much like to see Loki in another MCU movie, or perhaps in a season 2 of this series.
That still seems like death to me. The guy existed, then he didn’t. Isn’t that what death is? Why does it make a difference if he stops existing because someone put a .38 slug in his head, versus stopping existence because someone collapsed the time-space continuum?
I imagine that Marvel/Disney realize that he’s a very popular character, and played by an actor who’s become a favorite among fans (and who clearly loves the role). I’ll be stunned if they don’t leave some sort of route for Loki to return to MCU films at the end of the series.
I’m in agreement with you that the actions of the TVA, as we seem to understand them so far, are… I’m not sure that there is a word that properly conveys just how horrible their actions are, but lets just say… bad.
However, those within the TVA probably have justifications for what they do, no one thinks that they are the villain. Somehow the fact that the victim didn’t just stop existing, but never existed at all makes the act more ethical, in a way (that I personally don’t agree with.)
Let’s say that someone goes back in time and prevents your parents from meeting, did they actually kill you in this new timeline?
Right. I’m interested in proving this point of view wrong.