Episode 1: Glorious Purpose (Spoiler Discussion)

To paraphrase "people who believe in predetermination still look both ways before they cross the street". You have free will but the timekeepers exist outside our timeline. That's the reason they can watch everything like a movie and why the Infinity stones are powerless there.

There are over 14 million alternative timelines (verified by Dr Strange) where the Avengers lose. The sacred timeline is the one where a rat saves Ant-Man and the Avengers beat Thanos.

So the timekeepers probably pick the sacred timeline but it's because the other timelines are pure hell. Imagine a timeline where D-Day fails or Abraham Lincoln isn't elected.

Basically we're free to create our own history but most of those historical timelines aren't worth keeping.

 

I think the Infinity Stones don't work because the TVA isn't a part of the universe. The stones were created with the universe, and their power comes from the universe.

Also I doubt the timekeepers care about DDay failing or Lincoln losing an election or a timeline being hell. These beings don't have our morals or geopolitical concerns. They couldn't allow Thanos to win because he was ****ing with the entire universe and erasing trillions upon trillions of lives. He was flipping the whole game board. Probably creating multiversal waves. That couldn't be allowed. But Nazis winning and committing the Final Solution against millions of humans or Lincoln losing and slavery continuing probably doesn't matter at all to the Timekeepers. Theyve probably ended more lives than every human war and genocide combined. All for their "sacred" timeline.

 

Am I the only one who thought of Kang when the TVA agents in Oklahoma said the weapon they found was from the "third millennium" and that someone traveled back in time to strike it rich?

 

Loving this so fun. It’s a stroke of genius to put a guy who loves to meddle in the one place you don’t want someone meddling with

 

Speculation time! Spoilers just in case:

Spoiler

My guess is that the TVA was set up by Kang (or someone like him, the Time-Keeper in the middle sure looked like Kang) to a) make sure it's his future that comes to pass (i.e. the one in which he's ruling everything) and b) cut off alternate futures/timelines/universes so that they cannot threaten his power in a second multiversal war. I think at the end of this first season the TVA will go kaputt or get altered significantly just in time for stuff like What If?, No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness to go without their interference.

 

cocerning steve...i think there is wiggle room to keep the "sacred" timeline intact. if nothing macro changes, then no branches. removing the infinity stones (something macro) created new branches and putting them back closed them per the ancient one. since this was always supposed to happen, the TVA didn't interfere.

now, steve staying back with peggy was the original timeline but he wouldn't become a variant unless he did something that would effect the macro. this could explain why he had to stay quiet and away from public eye b/c if he tried to intervene in the world events, he would then become a variant and the TVA would have to get involved.

the set up for the TVA to be the main antagonists was set up this episode. their soldiers look like riot squad fascists. even the video looked like propaganda. mobius jokingly told loki he can burn down the TVA starting with his office. mobius also was portrayed as a good guy (his interaction with the kid). my guess is that mobius knows what's going on and that he actually recruited loki and needs both this variant and the "evil loki" variant to bring down the TVA.

we also got loki's speech about how humans make the wrong choice. that is foreshadowing how he will change and instead of ruling folks b/c they always make the wrong choice, he will liberate everything so there actually is free choice. the "evil" variant loki will help him understand this.

the infinity stones as paper weights? they were the biggest things for the MCU for 12 years...but guess what, they don't mean jack compared to what's coming up.

it's all connected - TVA, quantumania, kang, spiderman, dr. strange. phase 4/5 will be the true nature and ramifications of messing with the time travel stuff that was introduced in end game. feige always has everything planned out.

side tangent random theory - since time is not perceived the same...is the war of the multiverses (per the cartoon) actually something that happens in the MCU future and not in the past as we are led to believe in the cartoon? is that actually secret wars and something that's yet to come?

 

This is going to be a big one so bare with me peeps..

If a series of events must occur through a selection of people, then by that very definition, if those events unfolded as they were meant too, then there's no choice - it's already been chosen for them, thus the role of hero and villain has already been selected by an author if you will..

We shouldn't, sure, but if the writers at Disney/Marvel want to write clever stories they need to think clever too.

I'm hoping so. I'm hoping there's a lot we're going to find out as the show goes on.

Totally agree on this. She's out of place, and out of time - so was Thanos and his entire army when he showed up. I didn't see the TVA jump in then, but apparently that was supposed to happen.

Exactly, and I don't like it.

If everything has already been planned though then how do variants even occur? I mean if we believe that the avengers were supposed to have gone back in time like that they in the same breath why couldn't Loki of the past escaped in the way that he did?

Makes the concept and theme behind Doctor Strange 2 that much more intriguing, doesn't it?

I think I'm done with Legends. It's just one big joke now!

Unlikely, because wouldn't Loki have still been imprisoned after the first Avengers?

Without Thanos in the main/original timeline, all events of the Thor films would've happened as they unfolded until the point where Thanos showed up and took out that Asgardian fleet. At that point there's no reason to think Loki would've gone bad.

 

I rate this episode a 7.5 out of 10.
I found to be quite interesting and time just flew by.

The TVA angle is so intriguing and the way Loki is thrown into the mix is very clever since his chaotic presence contrasts well with how organized and by the book things are being run.

Great chemistry between Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson. Very interested to see how this series will develop and pan out.

 

Yeah, it's probably not what Marvel has in mind. But it's easily possible.

Loki was imprisoned at the end of Avengers, but was freed during the The Dark World. These events are part of the sacred timeline. However the timeline branched during Guardians of the Galaxy when Thanos, Nebula, and Gamora discover time travelling Nebula. From this point on there is a branch of time where Thanos no longer exists. This branch can't be pruned by Steve Rogers bringing the stones back, because the sacred timeline requires that Thanos jump into the future for Endgame. Hence a branch that is part of the sacred timeline(s) where Loki is not killed by Thanos.

 

It was ok as a premiere. I preferred WandaVision personally. Loki felt a bit more like a Netflix show with its slower pace and colours. It did seem to drag in places with lots of talk back and forth. I'm hoping it's not going to spend too long at this TVA headquarters.

Although this Loki has seen the events experienced by the other Loki, he hasn't changed or developed personally as a result of them. So I'm guessing he still is like Avengers Loki rather than now being more like Ragnarok/ Infinity War Loki.

Is the hooded figure at the end meant to be another version of Loki? I wondered if they would be bold enough to introduce Dr Doom.

 

Another theory: In the first episode, Loki sees a future where his life ends in utter failure. Loki will want to alter the sacred timeline to prevent those events. The 3rd Loki is simply the future self of our TVA Loki variant, trying to "set things right".

 

That's comic book canon as well, as revealed in the great JLA/Avengers limited series by Busiek and Perez. Darkseid had the Infinity Guantlet on Apocolips and it may have well been stuffed in a desk drawer.

 

Well what makes one timeline "sacred" over the others? If the sacred timeline is a hellhole what's the point of protecting it?

Then you have a one world dictatorship and way more genocide with a Hitler victory. Would such a government allow a justice-oriented superhero group to exist and stop Thanos? And why would such a hopeless and desolate timeline be considered sacred?

Is it just a coincidence that 99% of the time the good guys win in Marvel Universe? Maybe there would be multiverses where they lose and those are eliminated for the best timeline worth saving.

 

The more I think on this, the more I think it's right. The TVA has screwed up. Loki understands the TVA to be the ultimate power in the universe. If he can take over the TVA, he will have the power to select his own future.

 

Haha, yep this is what I think of with the Matrix universe. If I was in their real world I’d rather be plugged into The Matrix and none the wiser.

 

I don't think this will be the case. We already know there was and will be a multiverse in meta-time, so even in the past there was freedom of choice (as evidenced by timelines such as Zombie Cap and Peggy Cap and the Hydra Stomper armor from What If...? being created at earlier points in time). Right now we know nothing about the Time-Keepers in the MCU except for what their own organization has told us. This will almost certainly not be the (whole) truth. This will probably be based in part on the "If Asgard Should Perish" and/or "Avengers Forever" stories.

I don't think that makes it meaningless. It has always been the case that the stones exist in multiple realities in both comics and the MCU, and in the comics it is the case that they don't function outside of reality, so this just seems like how this would normally go.

I think the fact that Loki was able to escape is actually a hint towards the fact that the "big plan" is far from perfect. Even in the episode it's questioned who the Time-Keepers are and why they should have authority regularly. It seems pretty obvious that there'll be more going on with that and TVA propagandist 'Miss Minutes' should perhaps not be taken at face value.

Probably the timekeepers want that Gamora to exist in their "Sacred Timeline" for whatever reason.

I don't think the timekeepers would select their sacred timeline on the basis of something like one US President or one earthly war. I don't think they'd care about that stuff, as long as what they perceive as the right flow of time happens. And what they think is 'right' certainly doesn't seem to depend on our morals for what makes something 'good' or 'bad' to us.

Okay but why do these authors have authority? And given that variants can go against the author's wishes and the fact that we know there was and will be a multiverse (What If?, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness, etc.) means that there certainly is more than a single way things can go because they are 'meant to'.

What criteria make them 'out of place' though? Sure, they arrived there through timetravel, but we already know the timekeepers believe timetravel can be part of the plan. It's already established that they want things like the Avengers getting stones from the past to happen so why could they not want Gamora from the past to be there? As far as we know the timekeepers only care about things happening as they think they should, timetravel accounted for. I feel like this response presumes that the "proper flow of time" or "Sacred Timeline" means "No interference through timetravel or bringing things to another time", but that doesn't seem to be what the Time Keepers actually care about from what we've seen so far.

Exactly. This shows the Time-Keepers are not infallible. They're not omnipotent. They just have an agenda for having things happen a certain way but clearly aren't in absolute control.

What makes it "sacred" is that it is how the Time-Keepers think it should be. Who is to say why they do, but I think it's naive to presume they want a timeline because it is "the most morally right according to human ethics". It may well be the case that this timeline happens to be ideal for their own self preservation or even rise to power and that's why they want to maintain it. I don't understand why many people here hear "these mysterious beings say it's sacred" and just go with it and think "okay, well I guess if they say it this must mean this timeline is actually objectively the best".

 

Maybe he would try (and fail) to undo his mother’s death too which could give some good emotional scenes.

 

The first episode needed to take place there for the exposition dump to set up all the future episodes. I don’t expect that to be the case moving forward now we know what the place is and how it works.

Good point that this Loki won’t have the development /growth of Loki as we’ve got used to him in the last few years and will be reverted back to an earlier state of mind, even though he can see what happens on the tapes.

Talk of Lady Loki, and at least I wouldn’t expect Doom to be fully unveiled on a show for now. They didn’t bother doing anything like that in WandaVision with multiple opportunities (Magneto could have fit well), so if they do it will be a serious step up.

 

Well they did pick the timeline where Thanos was defeated out of 14 million possibilities where Thanos wins. That shows there's a bias that can align with justice.

Whether that alignment is coincidental, we don't know yet but it does open the door to the possibility that the time keepers pick a timeline that favorable, justice oriented, or simply worth protecting.

For example if everyone became zombies in Marvel Universe or became slaves to Dr Doom why would they pick those to be "sacred" timelines. Because they do choose a timeline to protect above all others.

 

As far as Steve Rodgers, I think he was meant to go back and live his life with Peggy. I know they really never showed Peggy's husband in pictures and I thought it was because they didn't have an actor in mind yet so it was for later casting. It could have been that they wanted Steve to always have been her husband retroactively in Endgame. I don't know waiting the rest of this series and on Dr Strange movie to open up the multiverse and explain things further.

 

Sure, but that could just as easily be because a world where Thanos killed half of all life or everyone becomes zombies or whatever is unfavorable to them (the Time-Keepers) personally rather than because of justice. They said there was a multiversal war at some point. What if they're from the far future of the 'sacred timeline' and are just the (temporary) victors of that war and they're culling all other timelines in an attempt to prevent them from potentially challenging or becoming a threat to them personally? There's many ways this could go.

 

I thought it was a solid opener (I still prefer WandaVision's opener of the 3) but I can't help but to think Kevin Feige wanted his MCU version of Legion/Doctor Who.

 

Exactly. We have no idea whatsoever why they consider this timeline to be “sacred”.
And again, Thanos wiped out half the universe for 5 years. There was probably a version of the story were Thor “aimed for the head” and saved a lot of people a lot of suffering. And yet here we are.
So yeah, i bet those three space lizards dont choose this timeline because “the good guys always win! Yay!”

 

If the TVA objected to Thanos's actions so strongly, why didn't they take direct action against him themselves? They could have just gone to Titan in the past while he was still a baby and melt him, or arrest him at any point during his thousand-year rampage across the universe.

 

This reminds me of people who defend the lack of explanation for how the First Order rose in TFA and claim that world building isn't important.

Its an excuse for lazy writing and poor world building.