Hm, that's not bad. It still seems like a pretty big hole in her knowledge but I can buy that I guess.

I don't think Sylvie has ever been inside the TVA realm before. She's just managed to gain intel from all the minions she keeps mind-slaving and then killing. She's apparently been at this for several years - I think she said two - and has tons of those bombs, getting one from each team she wipes out.

Also think the "sacred timeline" is BS. Whomever is running the TVA is using their power to enslave a bunch of variant humans and then manipulating events to maintain their control maybe across multiple timelines/universes.

BowSowy said:

---

bobinator said:

---

How does she know so much about how they operate? How did she know that hiding in apocalypses (something they themselves didn't even know) would work? How did she even know there was such a thing as "the timekeepers"?

---

She uses her mind control abilities to get information about the time keepers from that time security guard. Maybe everything she's learned about the TVA she's gotten in a similar fashion?

---

However, I can't think of how she would know where and when the apocalypses occur without gaining access to the TVA's files. Maybe she's come across a time cop who had a photogenic memory of the apocalypses? Seems unlikely.

The thing is, even if it's BS, it still shouldn't make sense to Loki or Mobius either.

That one isn't as hard, Loki is a planet-traveling being so she could presumably know of a few.

Just off the top of my head if you wanted to hide on earth you could hide in the World Trade Center on/before 9/11, Hiroshima or Nagasaki, etc.

They're being misled/manipulated. We've already been given clues that there's more people like Mobius out there (maybe even exactly like him).

No I know that, maybe I'm not wording this right.

Even if they're being misled, and even if it's all a lie anyway, Loki should still wonder why there are multiple versions of him if there's only the sacred timeline and Mobius should be wondering the same thing. He seemed to remember chasing the alternate Lokis.

Like "wait a minute, if there's only this one timeline, where are these people coming from?"

That would be kind of an interesting way for this season to end.

Ah, yeah I don't know. The pruning process seems to be a little problematic. Person goes variant, TVA apprehends variant and prunes the branch off the main timeline, but I guess some variants get away? Or are repeat offenders? IDK.

Yeah, that's about what I was getting at with the prediction that the TVA head honcho is using that mechanism to control not just the main timeline, but multiple "main" timelines/universes. And all our characters have only seen their own little piece of the puzzle so far.

bobinator said:

---

Here's how I think that works.

A variant, let's say Joe creates a nexus event, which splits the timeline. So there is, for now, a Prime Joe and a Variant Joe. The TVA goes into the split timeline, snatches Variant Joe, and then blows up that timeline with their little jars, erasing it completely. Variant Joe is taken to the TVA, where he is either disintegrated for not taking a number or some other offense OR he is "reset" and has his memory wiped and becomes part of the TVA.

But Prime Joe continues on, unaware that this ever happened.

---

I think that is exactly how it works.


Now, the real issue is this: How does Variant Joe end up as a monster, or a woman? In my opinion, in order for that to happen on a true variant of the main timeline, it would require some other person way in the past creating a variant timeline that is able to progress for a long time before the TVA clips it. Given what we see them doing (clipping timelines immediately) I can't see that being a real option.

Right that's what I'm getting at on why I don't understand that part, and why it shouldn't make sense to Loki or Mobius either.

Her very existence disproves the sacred timeline thing.

100% agree. Loki kind of thinks it was all BS to begin with but it seems like that's a bigger deal that the show or writers want us to kind of ignore?

bobinator said:

---

That one isn't as hard, Loki is a planet-traveling being so she could presumably know of a few.

Just off the top of my head if you wanted to hide on earth you could hide in the World Trade Center on/before 9/11, Hiroshima or Nagasaki, etc.

---

Maybe I misunderstand what you're saying but I don't think you could hide there. It needs to be a huge event in which everybody dies. I guess they could argue that everybody died in Pompeii or nobody ran over to the next village and said "hey this random future guy was there when the volcano exploded."

EDIT: Actually I guess not everybody died in the destruction of Asgard. Let's just call it a plot hole and move on.

The hurricane in Alabama was localized to the Roxxmart or whatever, right?

The way I understand it, not everyone has to die necessarily, it's just that your presence there can't have any long-lasting ramifications for the timeline or else the TVA will be able to see that you're there changing things.

9/11 might have been a bad example because people were coming in and out of the building even that morning, but you could hide in the atomic blast areas for days ahead of time if you were careful.

My only point there was that even on earth I could think of a few possibilities of places to hide, I'm sure a space faring being that's borderline immortal knows of a few pretty solid apocalypses.

It would make more sense if they said there were infinite timelines from the infinite possible choices every being is making every moment, and the vast majority of these the TVA allows to exist. So there is a current and heathy multiverse. But within that multiverse or infinite possible timelines, there are a limited number of branches that can become threats to the sacred timeline by developing tech to tamper across the multiverse or reach and destroy the TVA, and those are the timelines that must be snipped immediately before they can develop those capabilities.

But it seems they didn't take that path. Unless there's a big reveal coming.

bobinator said:

---

Right that's what I'm getting at on why I don't understand that part, and why it shouldn't make sense to Loki or Mobius either.

Her very existence disproves the sacred timeline thing.

---

Because she's not a Loki variant and is the Enchantress.

bobinator said:

---

That falls into the 'even if it's true, it doesn't make sense why the characters believe she's a Loki' category with "there's not just one timeline."

It might be true that she's not a Loki, but it doesn't make any sense why the characters believe she is one in the first place.

---

It could be because she's a powerful Asgardian sorceress and has deceived them. They may think she's Loki because she's from Asgard and has led them that way. If the TVA are just basic earthling variants it wouldn't be hard. She's outmaneuvered them so far pretty easily.

My speculation: maybe she's looking for a way to prevent Asgard's destruction on the main timeline.

bobinator said:

---

That also doesn't matter for what I'm talking about.

Maybe I'm still not wording this right. It doesn't matter if she is a Loki or not, or if she's from a different universe, or dimension inside a pocket universe or whatever else.

The issue that the characters themselves shouldn't believe a second Loki is possible based on what we've seen so far. It doesn't make sense that, if they're protecting "the sacred timeline", they've chased a woman Loki or monster Loki before.

If there's only one timeline, and things always happen the same, as Mobius has said, then there is only the one Loki.

Now, that isn't to say that's true, but it should be what the TVA believes to be true.

---

My brain doesn't process time travel stuff very well. I'm too stupid to understand it, so I tend to not think too hard about it and just go with the simplest explanations assuming these shows will break their own rules.

YouBet said:

---

bobinator said:

---

That also doesn't matter for what I'm talking about.

Maybe I'm still not wording this right. It doesn't matter if she is a Loki or not, or if she's from a different universe, or dimension inside a pocket universe or whatever else.

The issue that the characters themselves shouldn't believe a second Loki is possible based on what we've seen so far. It doesn't make sense that, if they're protecting "the sacred timeline", they've chased a woman Loki or monster Loki before.

If there's only one timeline, and things always happen the same, as Mobius has said, then there is only the one Loki.

Now, that isn't to say that's true, but it should be what the TVA believes to be true.

---

My brain doesn't process time travel stuff very well. I'm too stupid to understand it, so I tend to not think too hard about it and just go with the simplest explanations assuming these shows will break their own rules.

---

There's the key!


So here's something fun. Would the TVA exist if Tony never solves time travel?

I think there's some disconnect so far between what they've told us and what variants are/where they come from.

Like has been mentioned, they describe variants as "started a revolution or late for work". This Loki variant is literally the exact same as Sacred Loki, just without the deep tissue neck massage. Female or monster or whatever would mean such an incredible amount of timeline change thats more like decades or centuries.

A nexus event looks like it starts getting into danger zone within hours. Unless all of these variants managed to hide in apocalypses over and over, raising kids or making HulkLokis for a day at a time amongst doomed people, I don't know how they exist either. Also, damn, that would be a totally whacked out way to live.

Quote:

---

So where do the TVA agents think these other Lokis are coming from?

---

I'm hopeful, but not expecting, to get clarity on this. Since the characters act like all the weird Lokis are a normal occurrence of time branches, it's likely that we will just have to accept it and move on.

I am going to be extremely annoyed if that's the case.

bobinator said:

---

redline248 said:

---

So here's something fun. Would the TVA exist if Tony never solves time travel?

---

I think the answer here is clearly yes. Tony only 'solved' time travel in the sense that the Avengers are able to do it. It appears that there are other beings/creatures/etc that can time travel in other ways.

---

But like with any tech, eventually it gets out and other people duplicate it. Assuming the TVA is really earth based, when did they gain the ability to time travel? Sometime after Tony. They have to exist "at the end of time" in order to have such knowledge of all these events.

Now if they are from somewhere else then all bets are off.

bobinator said:

---

I think, as viewers, we can all safely assume that the 'sacred timeline' stuff is a lie and it will be revealed that there's actually other timelines/universes/dimensions/whatever.

But the characters themselves don't know that.

---

I have a feeling that one of the major reveals in these next 3 episodes will be Mobius realizing that everything about the TVA is a lie. This is just my guess, but I think that the TVA workers get brainwashed when they are first reset and are led to believe the sacred timeline BS. Now, I have no idea why the time keepers want to uphold this "sacred timeline" facade