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#but the tva persecuted sylvie her entire life
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Okay ONE more Loki post. I liked Sylvie in s1, genuinely! She was dynamic and interesting, the banter between her and Loki was on point, etc.
But then they toned down the makeup and the hairspray so she's a little less polished and gave her a small life she loves with nice coworkers and a favorite record shop. and I LOVE her
#loki spoilers#i mean yeah i think they should have let her look wrinklier and odder <3#but i can admit i'm the one watching a marvel show#if that's what i want i have come to the wrong place#anyway listen i keep seeing people say she's so selfish and she's not growing#i think that she IS selfish and she IS growing and i LOVE her#yeah it looks like she'll probably get pulled into needing to save the world one more time#(she *might* not but that's another essay i'm not gonna get into)#but i hope so bad that she gets to return to the life she loves after that#loki has been building a life with his friends and that's lovely#but the tva persecuted sylvie her entire life#*loki's friends* did that#and yes they've changed!! yes sylvie is plenty flawed too!!#but a life with them isn't the way forward that she wants#and that's okay#after all#what's so terrible about wanting something?#loki is allowed#and so is she#plus i just. god with cosmic powers who just wants to be allowed a normal life in freedom. without wielding power over anyone.#it GETS to me!!#also if Loki does end up being part of leading the TVA#so that you have one of them learning how to wield power well#and the other learning to give it up#that makes for a two sides of the same coin that i find very satisfying#(granted i for various reasons would prefer burning the TVA to the ground and loki also relinquishing power#but my guess at this point is that they won't go that way with it#which i suppose isn't surprising since it's a good tool to have in their back pocket for the films)#anyway#i love sylvie <3
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goodolreliablejake · 1 year
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Time for another totally random and out of date marvel hot take that's just been in the back of my mind forever. A cold take, if you will:
Loki's limp and meaningless LGBT rep was massively disappointing. There's one line about bisexuality, one word on a chart in a background easter egg hinting at gender fluidity that is never proven out in action at all. Verilybitchie has an excellent video about all this.
However, to me, the thing that really stuck out was how much Sylvie seemed to be set up as a trans allegory--if not outright trans representation--and then they completely dropped the ball. They talk about how the universe just naturally introduces variations from the "Sacred Timeline" as if to divinely reinforce the foolishness of forcing people into prescribed roles. They talk about how she was taken from her home and persecuted all her life. She reacts to being called "A Loki" like someone being deadnamed.
None of this is followed up on in any meaningful way, and it's eventually drowned out by all the many wacky Loki variants we meet. But the moment that the show really lets this theme down was in Sylvie's big confrontation with Ravonna.
Sylvie finally comes face to face with the person who stole her from her family and ruined her life--and what does she ask? She asks what she her crime was. And what does Ravonna say? She can't remember.
And I'm like--what are you two even talking about? The whole idea of the Sacred Timeline, and the whole crux of the metaphor, is that any deviation from the prescribed outcome is punished. Sylvie's "crime" is that, in the eyes of the TVA, she was born as "the wrong gender."
This scene not only undermines the entire trans subtext, it made me wonder whether it was ever there at all or if I just imagined it. Perhaps this is an instance of someone having a good idea, and it being watered down in rewrites until it gets the Disney seal of approval.
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9worldstales · 3 years
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MCU Loki: Why so far it had been disappointing how the series has dealt with what the TVA had been doing
Right from when the series started I carried on the belief that what the TVA was doing was horrible, a mix between a Nazi regime and a fanatical cult down to the elements of police brutality, to the extermination and persecution of people they felt different and lesser, detrimental for their own self being all out of blind faith to something they were indoctrinated into.
I was expecting a serious analysis of this from the show since Waldron seemed to be so enthusiast of the TVA as it was his creature
“The TVA is just an entirely new world [with] a new cast of characters, and that’s what felt most exciting about the show: building a new corner of the MCU.’ What if this was the best show ever?’ I think that was literally my pitch. My pitch for the show was kind of a big, crazy, fun-time adventure.”
[‘Loki’ Writer Michael Waldron On Building ‘A New Corner Of The MCU’]
References to the TVA being bad needed to wait till Ep. 3 “Lamentis 1” and where just two lines:
Sylvie: So, naturally you went to work for the boring, oppressive time police. [Ep 3]
Sylvie: It must have started when I spent my entire life running from the omniscient fascists you work for. [Ep 3]
More than focusing on how horrid the TVA is, both sentences criticize Loki for cooperating with the TVA even if he was forced into it as he couldn’t escape, cooperating with them was his only way to survive, the implication being he should have taken the hero route and die instead than accept to join forces with the TVA.
Mind you, it could have been an interesting angle to look at. How people can embrace terrible things in order to survive. After all we saw Loki cooperating with Thanos under the promise if he were to fail recovering the Tesseract death would be a preferable option than failure.
THE OTHER: You will have your war, Asgardian. If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he can't find you. You think you know pain? He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.
The series could have drawn parallels from both situations, either making a point one should never bent or that sometimes you can’t do anything else but bent because not everyone is born as a hero, or because you’re just waiting for a time in which you can oppose as sometimes getting heroically killed for your ideals can be also very unproductive.
But no, it’s not this series.
Loki will maintain he accepted to work with the TVA not because his other option was being killed (something that’s remarked more than once), but because he wanted to get to the Time-Keepers to steal their powers or something like that. If he’s lying to himself to cope with the situation that’s not a problem the series pose to itself as the series seem to embrace this explanation even if it made clear Loki would be reset if he didn’t cooperate.
Episode 3 also introduces the idea that people at the TVA works under a false belief. They think they were created by the Time-Keepers but in truth they are brainwashed Variants they kidnapped from their timelines.
Okay, it was another possible interesting route. Loki was a Frost Giant raised on the idea he was an Asgardian, there could be a parallel here… though one that, for the TVA, was less interesting.
The TVA members are enthusiastic believers. Most of them show no empathy toward the Variants, no pity. They belittle and humiliate them, handle them as beings with no rights, punish them for not obeying rules they didn’t know existed in the first place. Feelings rage from enjoying doing it to just doing it the way a boot steps over a ant to use a familiar metaphor.
The fact that in episode 4 B-15, after discovering the truth, will go: ‘I looked happy (in my previous life)!’ doesn’t really make me feel very sorry for her on an intellectual plan.
Yes, what the TVA did to B-15 was wrong, but what about what she did to others without a single remorse? Enjoying her work?
But, whatever, not everyone on the TVA seemed to belittle Variants, in ep 1 & 2 Mobius showed some form of pity for them, not enough it’ll stop him but enough we can think he didn’t enjoy what was being done to the Variants so knowing how he’ll react could be interesting, couldn’t it?
We reach Ep. 4 “Nexus Event”.
While we see the TVA did to a child version of Sylvie what they did to Loki and this time there isn’t any ounce of doubt that it wasn’t fun, this isn’t really used to throw shades at the TVA but to underline how Sylvie’s life was miserable.
Sylvie: I remember Asgard. Not much, but I remember. My home, my people, my life. The universe wants to break free, so it manifests chaos. Like me being born the Goddess of Mischief. And as soon as that created a big enough detour from the Sacred Timeline, the TVA showed up, erased my reality, and took me prisoner. I was just a child. I escaped. Stole a TemPad and I ran for a long, long time, which really sucked. Everywhere and every-when I went, it caused a nexus event. Sent up a smoke flare. Because I'm not supposed to exist. Until, eventually, I figured out where to hide. And so that's where I grew up, the ends of a thousand worlds. ( /Scoffs/ ) Now... that's where I'll die.
Thanks to the TVA, so it’s possible to make the connection that if Sylvie was in pain due to the TVA the TVA is a bad guy, but it’s again left vague.
In an episode that feel the need to have Loki define himself as a ‘horrible person’ and a ‘narcissist’, that calls him ‘an asshole and a bad friend’ using ‘a cockroach's survival mechanism’ when he actually says the truth and how he is a ‘conniving, craven, pathetic worm’ who should know he ‘deserve to be alone and always will be’ let’s not talk about how terrible the TVA is.
After all, according to the previous episode they’re just ‘boring, oppressive, omniscient fascists’. Nothing big.
And it’s nothing big, really.
C-20, B-15 and even Mobius, once discovering the truth are solely concerned about how the TVA lied to them, not of how they had been the TVA accomplices into wiping countless lives from existence.
Hunter B-15: I looked happy. What now?
Hunter C-20: "Calm down"? I'm a Variant. So are you. So is every single person in this place. I'm ending this.
Mobius: You know where I'd go if I could go anywhere? Wherever it is I'm really from. Yeah, wherever I had a life before the TVA came along. Maybe I had a jet ski. That's what I'd like to do. Just riding around on my jet ski.
They don’t care about what they had done with the TVA, they are okay with burning the place merely because the TVA has wronged them. But okay, maybe they need time to elaborate, to realize the implication of what they’ve done.
For C-20, who was reset, there’s no more time but…
Hunter B-15: Why am I locked in here?
Renslayer: You freed the Variant. You were disloyal to the TVA.
Hunter B-15: Disloyal?
Renslayer: Did you think you'd escape punishment for that?
Hunter B-15: Disloyal to who? You were in the Time-Keepers' chambers. They weren't real.
Renslayer: And why does that change anything?
Hunter B-15: That changes everything! The people need to know the truth.
Actually what the people need prior to that is to stop. Stop pruning other existences who’re exactly the same as their own. The biggest problem, the biggest CRIME isn’t that the TVA has done TO THEM, as, in doing so, it has at least spared their lives, it’s that they had killed countless galaxies and continue doing so.
So we move to Mobius.
I… I really don’t get what the series wants to do with Mobius. Although he wasn’t perfect, he seemed a decent guy in episode 1 & 2, one that wouldn’t enjoy hurting or scaring Variants without a reason. Yes he believed they needed to be eliminated… but didn’t enjoy doing it.
Yes, the way he ‘interrogated’ Loki in episode 1 was bad… but he believed he was doing only his work, that interrogation might have a point, some of the things he said weren’t meant to be just verbally abusive for the sake of it but were part of his ‘credo’ in which people had to follow the path of the sacred timeline and a side of him might have felt sympathy or pity for him. Although he knew it was risky he wanted to have faith in Loki.
Episode 4 tossed all that away with the worst interrogation scene possible. It contained gratuitous beating, psychological abuse/manipulation, derogatory comments, pointless questions while Mobius defined himself as Loki’s friend in the same episode. That scene has no purpose if not to beat and belittle Loki. What’s worse, when Mobius discovers the truth and goes to Loki, instead than asking him how he feels after such a beating he asks him what he’s doing… and I won’t dig into the rest of the conversation because it’s horrid.
Mobius’ ideas of apology for what he has done to his supposed friend is:
Mobius: You were right, about the TVA. You were right from the beginning. And if you wanna save her, you need to trust me. Can we do that?
Loki: Yes.
Mobius: Okay. You could be whoever, whatever you wanna be, even someone good. I mean, just in case anyone ever told you different.
It was Mobius who told him differently. Okay, he has acknowledged Loki was right and he was wrong but not that he had unfairly had him beaten for God knows how long for no reason. But okay, maybe Mobius too needed time to internalize all that, so let’s look at episode 5.
Let’s face it, no, what Mobius did to Loki won’t come up again with Loki, Sylvie will merely tell Loki (and to us) Mobius ‘isn't so bad’ and that he cares about Loki. Loki will counter Mobius isn’t so good either but that’s why he gets along with him.
I… I’m not sure what the series is trying to do at this point with Mobius, all we get about what he did with the Variants in Episode 5 is this.
Mobius: All that time, I really believed we were the good guys.
Sylvie: Annihilating entire realities, orphaning little girls, classic hero stuff.
Mobius: Well, I guess when you think the ends justify the means, there's not much you won't do. By the way, you did some annihilating too.
Sylvie: I did what I had to do.
Mobius: Yeah, so did I.
Sylvie: You hunted me like a dog.
Mobius: I'm sorry about that.
Mobius admits they weren’t the good guys, which would be great if it wasn’t for the fact the moment Sylvie points out how he was dumb at not realizing it sooner because we finally are told that the TVA is responsible for ‘Annihilating entire realities, orphaning little girls’, Mobius defends his actions!
The ends justify the means, you did some annihilating too, I did what I had to do.
Hey, news flash, no, those aren’t excuses. This is not a game about who annihilated more make penitence and anyway, if this was the case, the TVA wins. You killed countless people and now you’re complaining you aren’t a hero? That others are bad too? That you were forced to do it when you were a willing believer that refused to question things even though Loki immediately pointed out how it all was dumb?
Mobius: Odin, God of the Heavens. Asgard, mystical realm, beyond the stars. Frost Giants. Listen to yourself...
Loki: It's not the same. It's completely different. No. It's not the same.
Mobius: It's exactly the same thing. Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all this... My own glorious purpose. Cause the TVA is my life. And it's real because I believe it's real.
It took Sylvie remarking he hunted her like a animal to finally get him to apologize on something… and she’s the only one he apologizes to.
We don’t hear him apologizing to the other Loki Variants and this is his new glorious purpose:
Kid Loki: Mobius, assuming you do get back to the TVA, what exactly are you getting yourself into?
Mobius: I don't know. I'd like to let people know the truth.
Again it seems the biggest deal is the TVA lied to them and took them away from their lives, not that they pruned countless others without a care.
There’s no self reflection, there’s no horror for what they had done to the other Variants who were just like them.
When Kid Loki and Classic Loki say they’ll remain there because that’s their home he doesn’t counter ‘no, this isn’t and I’m sorry we let you believe this.’ It’s Loki who worries for them, pointing out the dangers of the place. Mobius, who’s either directly responsible or connected to the one responsible for them ending there and losing their whole world, says nothing.
So his sympathy toward the Variants, his pity… was it all fake?
Doesn’t he care anymore? This is the road the story decided to go with him?
Since Mobius has gained popularity into the fandom thanks to the first 2 episodes, to Owen Wilson and to those who shipped him with Loki, let’s strip him of what really made him great, the fact he didn’t enjoy mistreating the Variants and turns him into someone who doesn’t care?
What next, is he going to become the new villain?
Damn it, this series started with a full episode questioning what Loki did in New York, pointing out how Loki’s belief ‘he would make it easy for humans’ because ‘freedom is a lie’ is an idiocy, how he was just a murderer and asking him if he enjoyed hurting people and making him say that no, he didn’t that he was bad, that he was a narcissist and yadda, yadda, yadda, then it turns out Mobius annihilated entire realities, orphaning little girls, all because freedom is a lie and we’ve all to do what the Time-Keepers decided and let’s have the guy you call friend beaten up at random for no good reason and… and that’s what we get?
That he rebels to the Time-Keepers because they had dared to lie TO HIM about not having created him?
Is the series trying to make a point about how people at the TVA can accuse Loki of not being good but they’re actually worse because they did much worse and didn’t care at all about their victims?
Is it a critic to society, that find easy to criticize someone but can’t admit they do worse? Won’t even see they’re doing worse and would resent instead for any little slight done to them?
It would be an interesting theme… the problem is it doesn’t seem to be the goal of the series as it tends to overlook the TVA, its fascist behaviour and the annihilation of civilizations at the hands of willing, albeit indoctrinated members, to focus more on how the TVA wronged solely Sylvie (her complain about her being orphaned is more about HER being orphaned than about HER PARENTS having been killed) and the TVA members.
It’s fair to see the TVA members as victims… they are… but what about the other Variants who got erased? What about how the TVA members had been complicit in said elimination, enjoying it, gratuitously mistreating and belittling Variants before eliminating them?
Is it just up to us viewers realize it because the story isn’t going to do the work for us?
I don’t know. I hope the last episode will do something to fix this.
There’s still an episode after all and maybe I’m worrying over nothing, maybe someone, Mobius preferably because I want to go back considering him a decent guy, not perfect because nobody is perfect but decent, and I don’t like what episode 4 has done with him, will regret what was done to way too many people by the ones who were working at the TVA.
I’ll be fine if they still need to internalize what they had done... but I’d like for them to be done internalizing before the series ends because otherwise it’s just skipping over the whole topic.
So... I’ll try to keep hopeful. Maybe they won’t disappoint me.
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aion-rsa · 3 years
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Sylvie is the Secret Heart of Marvel’s Loki
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This article contains LOKI spoilers.
From the very start, the existence of Marvel’s Loki series has seemed more than a little suspect. Don’t get me wrong: If Tom Hiddleston wants to do a TV show, obviously you let him do a TV show, especially if it’s as one of the few genuinely complex and multi-faceted villains that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has managed to create over its decade-plus long march to power.
But the decision to tell a story about this version of Loki – one that stole the Tesseract following the Battle of New York and disappeared from the primary MCU timeline before the bulk of his redemption arc could really kick into gear – has always felt kind of like a cheat. And, in truth, it is precisely that: A way for Marvel to narratively have its proverbial cake and eat it too, mining the emotional drama of Loki’s earned death in Avengers: Infinity War without having to lose one of the most popular actors in its stable for good.
But as Loki continues, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this story isn’t even really about Loki at all. (Or at least not the one we know.) Thanks to the concept of Variants – different versions of familiar characters whose lives have diverged from their predetermined timeline in some way – our God of Mischief is technically not even the most interesting character in the show that bears his name.
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Maybe it’s the fact that the Loki in Loki is a figure whose story we’ve seen play out once already before, or perhaps it’s because this version of the character is one who exists at one of the least complex and interesting points in his own narrative. (Oh, you tried to take over the Earth? How original.) But it’s easy to be both completely fascinated by and utterly grateful for the introduction of Sylvie, a mysterious female Loki variant who’s much more than she initially appears to be and who steals every scene in which she appears.
Part of that is, of course, due to actress Sophia Di Martino, whose sharp, prickly performance is every inch the equal of Hiddleston’s more chaotic one, but grounded in a simmering, purposeful rage that immediately sets her apart. (Even if there’s really no arguing that Hiddleston’s Loki is certainly going to be the more fun of the two to hang out at the bar with.) But it’s also because, in just the space of two episodes, Sylvie has firmly established herself as Loki’s most interesting character, a woman whose existence is part tragedy, part triumph, and part meditation on the very rules of the universe itself. 
Though she may share some significant similarities with “our” Loki, (including an affinity for the color green), Sylvie is very much her own person, with plenty of agency and a clearly defined agenda of her own. She is not doomed to follow in Loki’s footsteps simply because they share an identity, rather she seems especially interested in striking out on her own path and following her own set of rules. It’s the only way she’s managed to survive as long as she has.
For starters, there’s the fact that she’s called Sylvie, a name that not only sets her apart by connecting her to Marvel Comics’ second Enchantress but one that it appears she chose for herself after purposefully rejecting the Loki moniker and everything that goes along with it. She’s dyed her hair blonde, broken one of the iconic horns off her headdress, and taught herself the sort of powerful enchantment magic our Loki would have given anything to be able to use himself back in The Avengers. (It’s a version of what he used the Mind Stone for, after all.)  Sylvie’s a fighter, a survivor, and clearly every inch as smart as the trickster we know. But it’s the way her story deviates from Loki’s that makes her so compelling to watch – and essentially establishes her as Loki’s emotional center.
Read more
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Marvel’s Loki Reveals How the Universe Craves Chaos
By Alec Bojalad
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Loki Episode 4 Theories: Who Created the TVA?
By Gavin Jasper
Born as the Goddess of Mischief on an Asgard that looks a lot like the one we know, Sylvie received a visit from the Time Variance Authority when she was just a child, charging her with crimes against the Sacred Timeline and essentially sentencing her to die. Though she escaped the TVA before she could be purged from the timeline forever, her entire life since has been spent on the run, being persecuted by a faceless group of bureaucrats who want to kill her for something that occurred when she was just a kid – the consequence of a decision she still can’t identify. (And which her persecutors no longer even remember.)
Sylvie grew up living in the literal shadow of death to stay alive, with worlds burning down all around her, no place she could call home, and few friends. (And if she somehow ever managed to make any, they were basically doomed to die pretty soon thereafter.) This is some pretty dark stuff for Marvel, and it’s hard not to feel sympathy for the nonstop nightmare her life has been up to this point. Particularly when compared to Loki, who has attempted genocide multiple times over the sort of family-driven angst that could probably be solved with a good therapist.
Though his time-looped interaction with Lady Sif forces Loki to confront the fact that his aggressive narcissism barely papers over the gaping emotional hole in his own soul, it’s difficult to argue that his inner sadness is enough to justify the terrible things he’s done to others. (Which, let’s face it, goes well beyond cutting off Sif’s hair.) And his various family issues pale in comparison to what Sylvie’s been forced to face, and she’s never tried to commit genocide or enslave a planet by way of acting out.
Yes, she’s controlled minds and killed multiple TVA agents and neither of those things are great from a moral perspective. But those are also the same people who considered her an aberration and wanted her dead, so on some level, it’s hard to blame her. Even her supposedly villainous plan to bomb the timeline and bring down the TVA isn’t about claiming their power for herself – which, let’s not forget was our Loki’s first impetus – it’s about finally getting the chance to rest for the first time since the home she knew was literally erased from existence.  How can you not root for that in some way? Doesn’t she deserve a chance at something like peace?
Of course, your mileage may vary on how well you think Loki depicts Sylvie’s journey compared to Loki’s own, or the value that the world of the show attaches to each. But she is certainly treated more directly as a villain, at least in the show’s initial episodes. (From the moment Loki arrives at the TVA, Mobius is basically his cheerleader. Has Sylvie ever experienced something similar?) And yet, she’s still trying to free herself and her fellow Variants – who don’t even know they’re enslaved – from the rule of an organization that has never cared about any of them.
Sure, figuring out what’s up with an alligator sporting tiny Loki horns will undoubtedly be entertaining to watch. But it’s the conclusion of Sylvie’s story that looms as the most exciting part of Loki’s final two episodes – what does her life look like if she succeeds? If she can finally stop running? If the Time Keepers aren’t real and the TVA no longer has power over her or anyone like her? If she truly can be Sylvie for once instead of a doomed, somehow lesser version of Loki – that’s a future that looks pretty limitless to me.
The post Sylvie is the Secret Heart of Marvel’s Loki appeared first on Den of Geek.
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aion-rsa · 3 years
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Marvel’s Loki: Everything We Know About Sylvie (So Far)
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This article contains Loki spoilers.
One of the most exciting aspects of the new Marvel Disney+ series Loki so far has been the introduction of the concept of Variants, different versions of familiar characters whose choices and actions have diverged from their primary timeline in some way.
The show, for example, isn’t about the Loki we saw die in Avengers: Infinity War, but follows a version of the character who stole the Tesseract and disappeared following the Battle of New York in the wake of some Avengers-style time heist hijinks. But this Loki isn’t the only alternate version of the God of Mischief running around our screens.
At the end of its second episode, Loki introduced a female version of the character, who also sports decorative horns, loves the color green, and has a penchant for cynical commentary. But this take on the famous trickster is probably not what anyone expected – an intriguing mix of multiple comics characters combined to create a woman who feels like something entirely new, with an obvious agenda of her own.  
Here’s what we know about Sylvie so far, what we’re still wondering, and what we think it all might mean.
Lady Loki?
At the end of Loki’s second episode, most of us assumed that the female Loki variant was in fact Lady Loki, a female version of the character from the world of Marvel Comics who was generally villainous and could possess and control the minds of her victims (think Wanda back in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but in addition to just making people see things she could control their bodies too).
But although it’s obvious that this character is both a woman and a Loki, “Lamentis” makes it clear that she’s also not precisely Lady Loki, at least not as comics readers would understand the character. Here, she goes by Sylvie, her TVA file lists her surname as Laufeydottir, and she appears to be a true variant/alternate universe version of our original recipe Loki, whose experiences largely mirror his, just with a few key differences. 
Sylvie Lushton?
The name Sylvie indicates that this female variant’s character is also at least partially based on Sylvie Lushton, a regular human who was granted Asgardian powers as part of a cruel joke and became the sorceress known as Enchantress. (No, not the one you know from DC’s Suicide Squad). Given that her magic is referred to roughly a dozen times in “Lamentis” as enchantments this seems like an obvious connection to draw.
This variant seems to have chosen her own name, however, at least in part as a way to reject her identity as a Loki, for reasons we don’t yet know. The general circumstances of her origin are still fairly mysterious, though a Disney+ featurette gives us a blink and you’ll miss it glimpse at a female child Loki (complete with dark hair!) being brought in by TVA operatives that indicates there’s more information to come on this front.
Sylvie’s magic is very different from our Loki’s
In the world of the Avengers, “our” Loki can only control minds with the help of an Infinity Stone. Sylvie can do it by touch, using her enchantment powers to project elaborate illusions into the minds of her target or even possess their physical bodies. These abilities are so impressive that Loki himself is actually jealous of them, which hints that they must be fairly rare and/or difficult to master.
Interestingly, Sylvie’s magic is also entirely self-taught, which gives her a fairly nontraditional backstory as a sorceress and hints at the reasons she herself might have become a Variant (perhaps teaching herself magic is what triggered the Nexus event that made her a Variant in the first place). Furthermore, it’s probably not an accident that Sylvie’s powers, when they’re being used, look an awful lot like something we’ve already seen before: Wanda Maximoff’s chaos abilities.
Whether that’s 100% on purpose or it’s just the fact that glowing squiggles are the easiest way to represent mind control powers, it’s hard not to notice the similarity between the two. Especially when we get clips of Sylvie saying things like “The universe wants to break free, so it manifests chaos. Like me.”
The gaps in Sylvie’s past
Whereas Loki possesses fond memories of learning magic tricks at the feet of his mother, Frigga, Sylvie grew up knowing she was adopted and doesn’t seem to have many memories at all of her parents or where she came from. She also specifically doesn’t give us any real details about her past – though Loki specifically says he’s the child of frost giants, Sylvie never concurs, and she goes out of her way to avoid mentioning anything at all about her family. 
All we know about her really is that she’s spent most of her life not as Asgardian royalty, but on the run from the TVA and persecuted for her very nature. Is that enough to make anyone want revenge? Probably. I mean, she had to learn that vicious hand-to-hand fighting style somewhere. But her vendetta toward the Time Variance Authority seems deeply personal, even though we don’t know exactly how she first came into contact with them just yet.
Sylvie’s plan: is she trying to create another multiverse?
Loki’s decision to help the Time Variance Authority track down the Variant that had been attacking Minutemen apparently thwarted a plan Sylvie claims had been in the works “for years”. Given that our Loki is not exactly known for things like dedication, patience, or work ethic, this is something of a marked difference between the two.
Ostensibly, her plan to release reset charges across the Sacred Timeline – essentially a bomb that would create multiple new branches simultaneously – is meant to give her the opportunity to get to the Time Keepers. But Sylvie’s been remarkably unforthcoming about what she wants from them or plans to do with/to them once she finds them, a fact which isn’t that surprising given that Loki has thus far been loath to even really tell us what the Time Keepers are.
What if she has more than one goal here? Is her attack enough to recreate the multiverse that the creation of Sacred Timeline destroyed? After all, we know that the idea of a multiverse is about to be a very big deal in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Both WandaVision and Spider-Man: Far From Home played around with the concept, and we know that upcoming films Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man: No Way Home will confront the idea of alternate realities and multiple versions of familiar characters head-on.
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Is this where that all begins, officially? Since Sylvie seems to know that all the TVA workers are actually brainwashed variants from timelines that the organization erased – could she be trying to give them all back their freedom?
The post Marvel’s Loki: Everything We Know About Sylvie (So Far) appeared first on Den of Geek.
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