Loki and the Allure of Alternate Timelines
This week saw the end of Loki, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s third foray into the not-quite-cinematic world of streaming TV. The six-episode show followed the fan-favorite trickster god and his adventures with the Time Variance Authority (TVA), and adds to the recent canon of alternate reality/multiversal series. Spoilers follow.
First, a recap: because of the Avengers’ time-travel hijinks in Endgame, an alternate reality is created where Loki takes possession of the Mind Stone, which, if you saw all 20+ MCU movies, should not have happened. In comes the TVA: an all-powerful agency whose mission is to “prune” or remove aberrant timelines as though they never happened, preserving only “The Sacred Timeline”, the one where Loki does not get the Mind Stone, where the Avengers win, etc.
If that sounds unsettling to you, that’s because it is. Upon pain of being pruned this alternate-reality Loki is enlisted to help the TVA capture another alterna-Loki who’s been messing with the timeline. That’s three Lokis now: the one in Endgame (who does not appear on the show), the Loki who’s working for the TVA, and the Loki that the TVA is supposed to capture.
Our protagonist Loki (guy #2) agrees to help the TVA but has his own endgame, of course. He’s the god of mischief after all. He wants to know who’s behind the TVA, and to take over it so he can have control over time itself. Loki goes through an emotional journey and some character growth, and hijinks ensue.
The TVA has a very midcentury/retrofuturistic aesthetic, which I loved. Sacred Timeline in yellow.
I found Loki a bit uneven, though it did have a lot of high points. I really appreciate how our main Loki comes out as bi/pansexual and I enjoyed hanging out with Sylvie, the female alternate-Loki who is honestly a co-protagonist of the show. There is also an alligator Loki, but I won’t delve into that much.
The effects are great and the production value is worthy of the MCU. Yet I really did not find myself drawn to the lead character as much as I’d expected. Instead of a chaotic-neutral (or -evil, depending on the day) god of mischief, Loki in this show is a cooperator/informant for a sketchy bureaucracy. He doesn’t get to use his powers much, and more importantly, he doesn’t get to do a lot of manipulation or trickery. The show is a necessary stop on the Loki redemption tour, but it kind of blunted the character for me.
In the finale we get to see what the TVA truly is and who’s behind it: “He Who Remains”, a man from the future who found a way to control the multiverses to end a Multiversal War. Before the Sacred Timeline there were many branching timelines; after humans discovered the multiverses and ways to travel between worlds, they did the human thing and each parallel universe started invading the others. We’re told it’s brutal and bloody and chaotic (which honestly, Loki would have enjoyed). He Who Remains ended the war by saving his timeline and eliminating all the others.
Despite the risk of another Multiversal War, Sylvie kills He Who Remains, unleashing the multiverse and leaving us with a momentous cliffhanger. Loki will return for another season, though I’m sure this story will pick up in the Marvel movies in between, specifically Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
Oh no, Sylvie, what have you done?
One of the high points for me is this finale reveal, and it’s more than enough to make me tune in next season. The complications of a multiverse is so appealing to me as I’m sure it is for many others. We’ve all probably had a Sliding Doors moment where we thought, “how different would my life have been if I missed that train just now?” A multiverse story is a “What If?” generator, and that question is what a lot of good science fiction is based on. So it’s no wonder that I’m into what Loki is trying to do.
I’m also into it because it’s similar to several recent multiverse shows that I really enjoyed, sharing similar plot and character elements. Spoilers for Fringe, Counterpart, and The Man in the High Castle follow.
Fringe is kind of a spiritual successor to the X-Files. It has a complex mythology mixed in with freak-of-the-week episodes that deal with fringe science. The main story arc revolves around the shaky coexistence of two different but similar timelines that clash with each other. At a certain point, we see how the parallel universe is created by the failings and selfishness of one man, and how that creates chaos for all of humanity (this reality’s, anyway).
In Fringe, travel between universes is done via the a machine called the Bridge.
Counterpart is another alternate reality series that I will shout out every chance I get. It’s so good. It’s an SF spy thriller that centers on the Office of Interchange, a CIA-esque agency that liaises with the parallel universe. Through a portal located in the headquarters’ basement, operatives from each world communicate and travel to the other. The two worlds are engaged in a sort of Cold War, and when the spies aren’t trying to maintain peace between two timelines, they’re covertly carrying out missions that further their side’s agendas.
OI Agent Howard Silk (played by the always excellent JK Simmons), travels to the Crossing to meet with his counterpart in the parallel world.
The Man in the High Castle, based initially on the Philip K. Dick book, starts out as an alternate history show that asks, “What if the Nazis won WWII?” The story is set in an America occupied partly by the Reich and partly by Imperial Japan, and follows various characters on different sides of these occupations. The alternate timeline is eventually revealed as one of many universes, and the show’s main villain, an American Nazi general, has found a way to travel to other worlds in order to invade them.
Nazis built the Tunnel to send their invasion forces through to other worlds.
These shows play alternate worlds and the myriad possibilities that multiverses present. Because these are stories, there is almost always a conflict, and these are about the possibility of these worlds clashing (sometimes literally). And because these are SF stories, there will always be the element of science gone too far, the use of science for evil ends, and invasion. Whether these conventions are good or bad, or whether or not they are avoidable, are topics for another day.
This bit about invasion is particularly interesting too, because a common throughline in these stories is that humans, once presented with another universe just like theirs, will eventually try to conquer it. It’s quite explicit in High Castle and in Loki, and it’s more understated in Counterpart and Fringe, but the idea is the same: we find a new world, we try to get something out of it, we end up wanting more and more, until it ends in war.
Multiverse stories are also alternative to SF stories that involve the exploration of other planets. In those stories, the characters go to a different place with different beings and try to extract something from them, under threat of force. Sometimes it’s an alien invasion of Earth, sometimes it’s the reverse. The multiverse stories—and where the abovementioned shows have taken such stories—present us with the same warlike storyline, but this time, we’re invading versions of ourselves. Is that more compelling? I think so.
Image credits: Header photo, screen capture of the TVA timeline screen, screen capture of the branching timelines, all courtesy of Loki, Disney+ and Marvel Studios; screen capture from Fringe courtesy of 20th Century Fox TV; screen capture of Counterpart courtesy of Starz TV; screen capture of The Man in the High Castle courtesy of Amazon Prime Video