Loki Season 2 Fails To Answer A Huge, Glaring Question
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been receiving criticism in recent years for its content that ranges from boring and incoherent (like Quantumania) to stilted and downright unnecessary (like Secret Invasion). This is why fans were so excited for the premiere of Loki Season 2: not only would the fans be getting the return of Tom Hiddleston’s beloved Loki character, but we would presumably be getting lore-heavy answers to some of the biggest questions we still had after the first season. Instead, the second season introduced a new question that it has consistently failed to answer: what is the current purpose of the TVA?
Back in Loki Season 1, we, along with Loki, discovered the existence of the TVA (or Time Variance Authority). In many ways, this group had powers that seemed to dwarf those possessed by characters like Thanos. This is made very clear by the fact that variant Infinity Stones of the kind that once made Thanos a Mad God, in fact as well as in title, are used by the TVA as nothing more than paperweights.
Loki Season 2 has made it clear the TVA original mission was a lie, so what will it do now?
We were particularly excited to see Loki Season 2 because we expected the TVA to be completely different or perhaps even non-existent. After all, that first season established that the group’s sole purpose is to preserve the so-called Sacred Timeline by ensuring that it’s the only timeline. By the end of season 1, the TVA’s mission was officially a failure because the multiverse had been reestablished, leading to (for better or for worse) the MCU’s current focus on all things multiversal.
Despite the colossal mission failure, the TVA remains in Loki Season 2. Honestly, that was a bit confusing in and of itself: the organization had one job and failed to protect the Sacred Timeline and prevent the rise of the multiverse. However, we didn’t get really confused until we learned that there is a rogue sect of the TVA that is determined to destroy the rest of the multiverse.
We were particularly excited to see Loki Season 2 because we expected the TVA to be completely different or perhaps even non-existent.
What we’d really like Loki Season 2 to explicitly address is why this group is considered rogue in the first place. The “rogue” group seems to have now the same mission that the entire TVA of season 1 had before…to protect the Sacred Timeline. If we got a definitive answer to that question, it would answer our even bigger question: if this is the rogue group, what is the core TVA group even supposed to be doing these days?
So far, in Loki Season 2, we haven’t gotten a firm answer to either of these questions. Because of that, we can only guess where Marvel is taking the TVA. With that being said, we do have a few compelling theories about what this mysterious group is planning.
Another popular theory among Loki Season 2 audiences is that Kang has been manipulating the TVA from the start.
For example, one theory that many fans were sharing ahead of Loki Season 2 is that the TVA didn’t necessarily drop the ball like we thought they did at the end of Season 2. If we accept the idea that some (perhaps most) of its agents didn’t necessarily care for the Sacred Timeline, then we must consider that they wanted the multiverse to return. In that case, it would make sense they would oppose a “rogue” group that wants to destroy the multiverse to restore the Sacred Timeline.
Another popular theory among Loki Season 2 audiences is that Kang has been manipulating the TVA from the start. For example, both fan-favorite characters, Mobius and newcomer Ouroboros, might have been created by Kang previously to monitor the timeline (now the multiverse) and prune everything to his liking. If that were the case, it would make sense for these secret Kang loyalists to oppose a rogue group that might throw a multiversal wrench in their master’s plans.
A variant (ahem) of that theory among Loki Season 2 fans is that Kang (technically, He Who Remains) is deeply in love with Renslayer (like in the comics) and wants to find a multiverse out there where the two of them have their own happily ever after. If he was manipulating the TVA from the beginning, it would make him the architect of the multiverse’s return, and he would oppose a rogue group that could snatch that happy ending away from him. Of course, we won’t know if the TVA is secretly playing matchmaker for Kang until we watch the rest of the season on Disney+.
