After much anticipation, Marvel's Loki debuted last night on Disney+, and all I can say is DAMN.
Obviously, 🚨 HUGE SPOILER WARNING 🚨 for Episode 1 of Loki. Please do not proceed if you don't wanna read it. Go watch and come back later!
It was great to see Loki scheming (and alive) again, and Episode 1 introduced the newest intergalactic superpower in the MCU.
Move over, Infinity Stones. Say hello to the Time Variance Authority, aka the TVA.
Now, just what the heck is the TVA?? Thankfully the episode featured a voiceover from the adorable and informative Miss Minutes.
Here's exactly what she said:
"Long ago, there was a vast, multiversal war. Countless unique timelines battled each other for supremacy, nearly resulting in the total destruction of, well, everything. But then the all-knowing Time-Keepers emerged, bringing peace by reorganizing the multiverse into a single timeline, the Sacred Timeline. Now, the Time-Keepers protect and preserve the proper flow of time for everyone and everything. But sometimes, people like you veer off the path the Time-Keepers created. We call those Variants. Maybe you started an uprising or were just late for work. Whatever it was, stepping off your path created a nexus event, which, left unchecked, could branch off into madness, leading to another multiversal war. But, don't worry, to make sure that doesn't happen, the Time-Keepers created the TVA and all its incredible workers. The TVA has stepped in to fix your mistake and set time back on its predetermined path. Now that your actions have left you without a place on the timeline, you must stand trial for your offenses."
*It feels important to note that this introduction contains the words "multiverse" and "madness," and that the title of an upcoming MCU film is literally Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Do with this information what you will.
In case you don't want to read the giant block of text I just put in front of your face, let's summarize.
This is a pretty close explanation to what the comics say about the TVA: Their job is to avoid the entanglement of the multiverse.
Here's what Michael Waldron, the head writer of Loki, had to say about the TVA:
"The Time Variance Authority is an organization that literally manages and polices all of time, [so] we had to define what time is to them and what time is in the MCU. How does it move? What is time travel? How does it operate? And so, we had to essentially create an institutional knowledge among the writer's room. A foundation of what constitutes a broken time law and what doesn't — which is about Loki breaking a time law — and then you have to move all that stuff as far to the background as humanly possible, because you don't want the audience focusing on the rules of time travel during your show.”
Throughout Episode 1 we learned a few important details about the TVA that have, frankly, MASSIVE implications for the past and future of the MCU.
The first is that, according to the Time-Keepers, Loki taking the Tesseract and escaping in 2012 constitutes a time crime, but the Avengers' Time Heist and subsequent resurrection of all their friends was "supposed to happen."
Another big reveal was that the Infinity Stones, y'know, the most powerful artifacts in the universe that cost the lives of several Avengers, are actually not that impressive.
Also huge: the TVA can travel to any point in time, which we saw when Mobius and the TVA Minutemen travelled to the 16th and 19th centuries.
Lastly, the TVA keeps a record of everything that happens in every timeline, which is how they were able to show Loki events from his past and what the rest of his life looks like in the Sacred Timeline.
OK, now let's consider what all this new information means, shall we?
Welp. I'm certainly feeling overwhelmed and anxious and excited for what's to come.
Let's see what else we learn about the TVA in Episode 2! See ya then.
