Warning: SPOILERS for the Loki season 1 finale, "For All Time. Always."
The finale of Loki season 1 opened up the MCU's multiverse, and along the way, it also debunked a number of theories that people had predicted would unfold, both before and during the series. Loki continued Marvel's more experimental boldness through its first run of Disney+ shows and was the most ambitious in of the scope of the story it set up. Significant new characters were introduced, as well as a number of huge reveals, and, through the use of clever editing in promo material, the major twist that a number of viewers suspected might be coming still felt like a surprise.
As for those new characters, two are likely to have a great impact on the MCU: Sophia Di Martino's Loki variant, Sylvie, who could be a mischief-maker in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Kang very well could take the place of Thanos as the MCU's new overarching big bad. Owen Wilsons' TVA agent Mobius M. Mobius was also introduced, and while he likely won't influence the larger events of the multiverse as significantly as the other two, he's still proven to be a great addition to the MCU in the vein of Phil Coulson.
With Loki revolving around the concepts of time travel and the multiverse, naturally, speculation and fan theories were numerous. Some of those guesses, like Kang being behind it all, were proven true. But others never came to . Here are some of the most significant theories the Loki season 1 finale debunked.
Another Loki Variant Was Behind The TVA
With the theme of controlling and conquering timelines, as well as Jonathan Majors already having been cast for a future MCU project, Kang the Conqueror was the first choice for many people in regard to who was truly behind the TVA and its Time-Keepers. However, Marvel hasn't gone with the obvious villain for the last two Disney+ series. What's more, the underlying theme of Loki has been how the God of Mischief is his own worst enemy, and the entire show has been his journey to get over himself. That led a number of viewers to speculate that another Loki variant was behind the TVA, particularly King Loki, who had a similar arc in the comics of manipulating a younger version of Loki in his quest to become a better man. This was fueled, not the least of which, by footage in the trailers showing what appeared to be a King Loki version of Tom Hiddleston's character, but that footage never actually appeared in the series. While Loki (Tom Hiddleston) met a number of other variants of himself, a few of which would have certainly double-crossed him the minute he had his back turned, none of them were even close to being the ultimate villain.
Miss Minutes Was Behind The TVA
Miss Minutes (voiced by Tara Strong) is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. The animated, seemingly sentient clock serves as sort of a combination historian, librarian, and secretary for the TVA, but there was always clearly more to her story than what was shown. That led to a number of theories about her exact role in the TVA, with one significant theory suggesting that Miss Minutes was the villain behind the TVA thanks to some viewers drawing parallels between Miss Minutes and the Wheatley twist from the video game Portal 2. The theory went even further to suggest the Time-Keepers had once existed but had long since died, and Miss Minutes was left in charge of the TVA with no one to answer to, eventually recruiting variants to serve in the ranks. While the finale revealed there was certainly more to Miss Minutes than met the eye, she was otherwise exactly who she'd always been, an assistant serving other, more powerful people.
Casey Was Collecting Powerful Artifacts To Overthrow The TVA
Though Eugene Cordero's TVA desk jockey, Casey, seemed to have been completely forgotten after Loki episode 2, those first two episodes provided plenty of fodder for theories. In particular, Casey's desk drawer full of formerly powerful artifacts, like the Infinity Stones, now casually dismissed as paperweights felt suspicious to a number of viewers after the immense power of the Stones being the overarching threat of the MCU Phases 1-3. Casey's bumbling, extremely naive persona was also speculated to be a front by some, who theorized that Casey was either Loki's real villain or working with the mastermind attacking the TVA. Rather than taking things at face value, namely that magical and powerful objects simply didn't work in the TVA and were thus devalued, viewers proposed a theory that Casey was secretly hoarding these artifacts in order to feed them to the villain or to use them to overthrow the TVA on his own. However, Casey was a non-entity after the second episode and while he may appear in Loki season 2, it will likely be as another version of his pencil-pushing TVA worker.
Sylvie Is Really The Enchantress
Outside of another Loki variant being behind the TVA, the theory that Lady Loki, a.k.a. Sylvie, was really the Enchantress was arguably the most widespread bit of speculation throughout the series. When she was first introduced, Sylvie was presented as a female variant of Loki and the one working to destroy the TVA. A number of clues led viewers to speculate she wasn't Lady Loki at all, however, but Enchantress, thanks to her green and gold color scheme, her blonde hair, and her powers of enchantment. And in the comics, Sylvie Lushton was a normal human to whom Loki secretly gave the same powers as the Enchantress, making Sylvie believe she was an Asgardian. The theory that Sylvie wasn't really a Loki was also partly fueled by the fact the creative team behind Loki had given a number of interviews in which they stated they knew how important Loki's genderfluidity was to the character. As a result, audiences hadn't been expecting the cop-out of the female version of Loki being an entirely separate person. That's an issue to be sorted another day, but in regard to Sylvie's identity, she really is a Loki variant, through and through.
Tom Hiddleston's Loki Would Die & Lady Loki Would Take Over
Throughout his time in the MCU, Loki has died a seemingly impossible number of times. Or rather, he's "died," as Avengers: Endgame found a loophole: technically, that timeline's Loki was dead, but thanks to the Avengers' time heist shenanigans, an earlier version of Loki stole the Tesseract and disappeared and it's that version of the God of Mischief the current series.
Even so, it seemed that even the seemingly unkillable god had to die sometime, and there was strong speculation that the Loki series would be Tom Hiddleston's swan song. The belief was that the series would finally give him the solo story he's deserved (and that audiences have wanted) for years and then permanently kill off his character, similar to what was done with Loki will also be appearing in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. In other words, Loki went from likely dying in his solo show to becoming one of the saviors of the multiverse. That's an incredible arc, and it's a testament to how good Tom Hiddleston has been in the role for a decade that, rather than grow tired of him, audiences are more excited than ever to see what he does next.
Black Widow Would Appear
The biggest theory prior to the series releasing is that none other than Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) would appear in Loki. This stemmed from a shot in the very first trailer, which showed Loki sitting on a purple, alien-looking planet with who appeared to be a red-haired woman dressed in black, sporting a haircut very similar to Black Widow's in The Avengers. With Loki dealing with the Tesseract and time-travel, a widespread theory soon arose that Loki would travel to a different timeline and encounter Black Widow and that the scene glimpsed in the trailer would be set on Vormir, or even that Loki was visiting the dead Natasha in another realm that mimicked the Soul Stone's planet. However, that was very much not the case: as Loki revealed, the woman in that shot was actually Sylvie, and it was simply the lighting of the scene that made her hair appear red. What's more, it was actually the moon of Lamentis-1 they were on, not Vormir, and the similar purple hue of the location was merely a coincidence.
Ant-Man Would Appear In The Post-Credits Scene
A relatively recent theory that the the Loki finale did have a post-credits scene, in a manner of speaking, it was simply a hand stamping a file that revealed a second season was on the way–no Ant-Man involved.
Loki season 2 will return on Disney+.
Key Release Dates
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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Release Date:2021-09-03 -
Eternals
Release Date:2021-11-05 -
Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness
Release Date:2022-05-06 -
Thor: Love and Thunder
Release Date:2022-07-08 -
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Release Date:2022-11-11 -
captain marvel 2
Release Date:2023-07-28 -
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Release Date:2023-02-17 -
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Release Date:2023-05-05