The Core Failing of ‘Loki’

‘Loki’ is a show stuffed to the brim with everything I like, a unique and well executed retro-future aesthetic, across the board solid performances, time travel shenanigans, surprisingly epic consequences on the overall Marvel universe, and yet…

Following ‘Wandavision’s’ lead, ‘Loki’ is a creative and unique side story in the MCU, not necessary but enjoyable, a deep dive into a fan favorite character that desperately needed the screen time and consequential depth… or so it should have been.

‘Loki’s’ primary failing is it’s own understanding of the titular character. As set up in Avengers: Endgame, the Loki featured is not the one we watched grow and mature over a decade of cinema, slowly drifting toward the ‘friend’ end of ‘frenemy’, but the young, naive Asgardian that just failed to attack New York. To make up for this, the show tries to incorporate significant character traits previously limited to comic!Loki but fumbles so significantly that it not only hinders Loki the character, but ‘Loki’ the show as well.

I’m going to specifically be focusing on ‘variant’ Lokis and Loki’s genderfluidity as I believe that to be where the core of the issue lies.

For those not in the know, Loki’s genderfluidity is an established trait that goes back to Norse mythology, where Loki would take on various forms and various genders as needed for whatever mischief is at hand. This has carried over to the comic books as well, however, outside of the only good scene in Thor: The Dark World, Loki shapeshifting at all, let alone across gender lines is, practically non-existent. “That is”, ‘Loki’ promised, “until now.”

The internet seemed to explode at the confirmation of Loki’s fluid sex, done shortly before the premiere aired (this is perhaps biased by my very gay™ Twitter and TikTok timelines). However, said fluidity is completely lacking outside of the show’s main gimmick: the variants (a feature not unique to Loki).

Yes, we see Loki in many different forms throughout ‘Loki’, an old man, a black man, a president, a kid, an alligator, and (most shockingly according to the show) a woman. But while Loki gets the most varied, uh, variants, we are told this is because “Lokis’ survive”, rather than Loki’s inherently variability.

In fact, ‘Loki’ goes out of it’s way to flatten the core of what a Loki is, into just a backstabbing trickster, hungry for power and eager to cause mischief (see the double-cross turned triple-cross turned quadruple-cross etc. seen in ep 5). This works to directly contradict the show’s core thesis on free will.

The entire premise of ‘Loki’ hinges on the idea that the enforcement of the so-called ‘sacred timeline’ inherently destroys free will. Those that deviate from their approved role get ‘pruned’ and dumped into the void. The show seems to state that the only reason Loki is “the god of Mischief” is because that’s the role the Timekeepers have forced him to play. As soon as Loki begins to grow or look beyond that, they’re ‘pruned’.

And yet, the majority of the Lokis we see (as listed above) embody the opposite. These are all variants ‘pruned’ because they failed to play their role, old man Loki got lonely, kid Loki went from ‘mischief’ to ‘ruthless’, alligator Loki… well, nevermind. These should be the Lokis that went beyond the “god of mischief” role, but the show goes out of it’s way to show main!Loki that all these Lokis are all the same.

All the same, except for our core duo of Lokis. You probably have noticed I’ve gone this whole time without even mentioning the most important Loki in ‘Loki’, Sylvie.

Sylvie is a stark exception to this rule. Featuring a completely different personality shaped by her drastically different life experiences, and somehow being the only female version, Sylvie is Loki in name only (except not even then).

We have no real explanation as to *why* Sylvie is so different, more specifically why she was ‘pruned’. It can’t be because of her differing personality because her defining trait, her inability to trust, comes from being on the run. It can’t be because she’s a girl because she was ‘pruned’ at the age of 8–10, well after she was assigned female at birth.

The only reason we have available to us is the meta-reasoning that the less Loki Sylvie is, the less weird it feels when she and main!Loki kiss.

Sylvie is not a prime example of how “people can change” but a random exception with no explanation or exploration.

All in all, ‘Loki’ set out to deepen our understanding of Loki while telling a story about how people can change and free will is important, while failing to do either, even directly contradicting itself, in order to prop up a flat incestuous ‘romance’ and to tell borderline Boomer-esque jokes about how “women are scary”.

I had other issues with ‘Loki’, how the plot feels like a string of poorly connected moments, or the shallow ‘representation’ that fits nicely alongside Disney’s lesbian cop and therapy gay, but the core issue was the hollow theme and shoddy character work.