Loki (1x01) “Glorious Purpose”
When timeline branching doesn’t make much sense
Preamble
For the episodes in Season One of Loki, I’m going to have to address the different timelines a little bit differently. Since the TVA in this season routinely erases branching timelines, it means that I can’t evaluate how they would affect the original timeline (as by the end of the season, most of these events don’t have an effect). Instead, I’m going to treat each trip into the past or future and consider how it would appear in the timescape as a whole.
Events
◷ Timeline A: New York City; 04 May 2012 AD
This is the timeline branch from Avengers: Endgame, in which Tony and others are acquiring the Tesseract. As in that timeline, Loki gets the Tesseract instead and teleports away. We learn now that he arrived in Mongolia, where he was promptly captured by the Time Variance Authority, who then “reset the timeline” with a device (which we later find out restores it to the “Sacred Timeline”).
Note: As much of this episode takes place inside the TVA, any events taking place in that location will be considered outside the space-time continuum and thus won’t affect the timeline in these critiques.
This does mean that the timeline in which Tony and co went back to recover the Infinity Stones from 2012 New York now actually no longer exists, rather than existing but being inaccessible (as per the First Law of Time). Which would make other events in that movie a bit difficult, but I’ll address those when I review the movie’s temporal events at a later date.
◷ Timeline B: Aix-En-Province, France; 04 December 1549 AD
A Loki variant arrives and ambushes a responding group of TVA operatives. Soon afterwards, other hunters along with Mobius are dispatched to investigate the ambush. This isn’t the first time, though.
OPERATIVE: That’s the sixth attack in the last week.
MOBIUS: That we know of.
This is a curious statement to make. Wouldn’t the TVA know when its operatives are attacked, by virtue of their failure to return? What it does mean is that there are at least five other timelines that existed prior, but I can’t include them in the timescape because I have no information on when they would be branching.
The main thing differentiating this timeline is the attack on the operatives as well as the presence of the Kablooie confectionary.
◷ Timeline C: Salina, Oklahoma; 1858 AD
This timeline is short-lived, as it is where the Loki variant ambushes and attacks another group of TVA operatives, stealing their reset charge.
Analysis and Ranking
There are three timelines shown in this episode, but as they do not interact with each other there’s really not much to tell. Two of those timelines were nearly identical, in that they involved the antagonist Loki variant ambushing TVA operatives and stealing their reset charges.
The most interesting aspect of this episode, from a temporal standpoint, is how it was apparently Loki’s actions (stealing the Tesseract and escaping) that branched the timeline, and not the Avengers arriving from 2023.
This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
A person’s timeline is a chain of cause-information-decision-action. A person observes a cause (i.e., the Tesseract slides over to Loki’s feet). The person then makes a decision based on the information available to them (i.e., Loki decides to escape). Finally, they carry out that decisions through their actions (i.e., picks up the Tesseract and escapes).
Given the same information, the same person at the same time would make the same decisions and consequently the same actions. Loki escaped because the Tesseract landed at his feet. It landed at its feet because 2012 Hulk accidentally launched it from 2023 Tony’s grip. Therefore, the timeline’s branching point can be traced to the 2023 Avengers arriving in 2012. In light of this, the TVA’s claims don’t make much sense:
- That the Avengers were always supposed to travel from 2023 to 2012. Their actions are part of the Sacred Timeline — by definition, not creating a branching timeline.
- Loki’s decision to escape with the Tesseract was the result of the Avenger’s actions (both 2012 and 2023), yet his escape is what causes the branching timeline and not 2023 Tony stealing the Tesseract from SHIELD.
There is no way that Loki’s action is what created the branching timeline — there was no temporal manipulation involved (the Tesseract does not manipulate time, only space).
Does this mean that the timeline in Loki was captured was erased in its entirety, not just Loki’s escape? If so, how does that work with the Avengers defeating Thanos?
The only thing I can assume is that the reset charge that is deployed in Mongolia takes some time to reach New York, as the “ripple” expanding from the device is travelling quite slowly. New York and Mongolia are separated by approximately 10,000 km. If the ripple expands outward at a constant rate of half a meter per second, that this distance would take over half a year. Even if the ripple is accelerating at 50 cm/sec², the distance would take over an hour to be covered. This is possibly enough time for the 2023 Avengers to travel away from 2012 before they’re pruned.
Because of this confusing issue over the branching event that caused Loki to be captured in the first place, I give this episode a ranking of:
Timescape
References
- Glorious Purpose | Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki | Fandom
- What Happened In 1549 France? Why Was Mobius There? (screenrant.com)
- Loki | On Disney+
Afternotes
Accuracy: Reasonable efforts have been taken to maintain the accuracy of any information presented, mainly by relying primarily on the source material. However, for the sake of brevity and fair use, quotations from the movie that I have included have been edited to only include the relevant sections of dialogue. Also, I’ve added dithering to screenshots to both reduce bandwidth and for visual effect, so don’t conclude that the episode itself has a dithered image.
Effective Theories of Time: I base this temporal analysis on my “theories of time”, which at the time of publishing (05 June 2024) there are presently three (3).
Copyright Disclaimer: This article and any attached images are claimed as acceptable uses of the copyrighted source content. I consider this as permissible, without requiring prior authorisation, under the following laws: the United States Copyright Act, Section 107, for purposes of criticism or comment; and the Australian Copyright Act of 1968, Section 41, for purposes of criticism or review.
