Ralph Glorioso
SPOILER ALERT! The following news contains spoilers for the second season of Loki.
Avengers: Endgame was, to date, the biggest event in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film not only closed the stories of some of the franchise’s most veteran characters, it also introduced one element: time travel. The movie, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, established a series of rules about this aspect. Now, four years later, Marvel has broken one of them.
The second season of Loki, the series starring Tom Hiddleston, is now available on Disney+. In the episode that opens the new installment, ‘Ouroboros’ (2×01), the protagonist is having trouble with time jumps. That is, the god of mischief is being randomly sent to the past, present and future.
Seeking a solution, Loki and Mobius (Owen Wilson) visit engineer Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan), also called OB. The protagonist meets the latter in the present, then jumps to the past and they have a conversation about his situation. Thus, the OB of the past creates a device to end Loki’s problem in the present.
Nothing weird about this, right? The truth is that there is a mistake if we pay attention to the rule established in Avengers: Endgame. In the film, Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) explains that if you travel to the past, “that past becomes your future, and your present becomes your past, which can’t be changed by your new future.” In short: what happens in the past does not alter the future. Thus, when the superheroes travel back in time for the Infinity Stones at different moments, upon returning to the present there are no alterations.
As you can see, what happened in the first episode of Loki’s second season does not follow that rule: Loki traveling to the past to speak with the OB of that timeline is changing the future.
Time is Changing
On the other hand, as ScreenRant points out, there is a phrase that is repeated in the fiction: time works differently in the TVA (Time Variance Authority). So that may explain why the rules are different in the world of the series. Remember, for example, when the first installment showed a drawer full of powerless Infinity Stones. In addition, episode ‘Ouroboros’ (2×01) also reiterates that the way time works in the TVA is changing.
If we follow the course of events, we can also find another explanation. Avengers: Endgame took place before Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) killed He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), which destroyed the Sacred Timeline and led, among other events, to the Multiverse. Therefore, we are facing another new world in the MCU, which could explain why the rules established in Avengers: Endgame no longer apply.
In any case, there are still many episodes of Loki ahead and everything indicates that the fiction is going to change more things in the MCU in the run-up to the franchise’s two major upcoming events: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.
