#anyway yeah so there’s obviously a variant in which someone’s power would let them know if they were going to fuck up the backflip
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talking to dagny about superpowers the other day and it sounds like even Worm didn’t really tackle the thing that I always find a hard sell about the sorts of powers where the logic is like ‘this person can fight real good because they’re able to calculate everything super fast so they know exactly what actions they need to take and when to dodge and so on’:
namely, that as someone who has spent time practising movement disciplines, i can tell you it’s perfectly possible to know exactly what you need to do and still fuck up the physical execution.
think about like. one physical skill people always like to claim is ‘really’ physics is catching a ball, because there’s like an equation or whatever that will tell you where the ball is going to fall. but anyone who’s played a sport has surely had the experience of knowing exactly where the ball was headed, and just not being able to get to it in time.
unless you have a secret second superpower that gives you inhuman physical reaction times and peak physical fitness and have spent a lot of time practicing acrobatics? kinda feel like you should have a perfect vision of the set of movements you need to complete to dodge the incoming fire while moving quickly into cover, faceplant on the second backflip and eat bullets.
#characteristic of comic books really#they love to present a fantasy in which there’s nothing jocks can do that you can’t replicate and more by Being Really Smart#anyway yeah so there’s obviously a variant in which someone’s power would let them know if they were going to fuck up the backflip#and will tell select the best move they are definitely going to pull off or something#but sans supplementary superpowers that ought to look a lot different#surviving that sort of encounter without doing anything the average untrained human won’t fuck up looks a lot more like#happening to have left before any violence starts happening
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[PEOPLE] Interview with an Ardat-Yakshi
By Cil M’riste, freelance storyteller
xposted to Freelance News, Cerberus Daily News, The Watch, and 14 others
The Ardat-Yakshi condition is one of our oldest myths. One that is largely presumed to be legend by a large portion of the galaxy’s population. The term “ardat-yakshi” appears in fantasy books, in extranet games, and even in extranet RP forums.
But what is the condition, and what is the myth? Most people will never even meet those with the underpinning medical issue. But I happened to get a chance to sit down with someone with the condition, to get her thoughts on a few issues facing people like herself.
I myself am not a doctor, nor any legal scholar. So any information provided by this interview can only be taken as a small view into a larger issue. They are the opinions and lived experiences of but one person living with the condition. The rest of the article will be presented in a Q/A format, with a set of final thoughts from myself.
Cil (C): "Hi, Nara. It's nice to meet you! Thanks for doing this. How was the trip here?"
Nara (N): "Um... nice to meet you too, Cil, my job is to pilot a freighter between here and Palaven, so I make this trip a lot. This time it was a little slower than usual. You'd think traffic jams wouldn't be a thing in three-dimensional space, but with the amount of starship traffic around the Citadel, that's not always true.
But I assume you're not here to interview me about my trip. You're here to interview me because I'm an Ardat-Yakshi. Well... Ask away."
C:"Oh, no. While that’s true, that it's not what we came here for, I'm not aiming to rush you. But if you'd like to get into it, certainly. Let's see…"
N: "Yeah, I'd like to get the tough questions out of the way sooner, I've been stressed out about this interview for like the whole day, and once we get those out of the way it'll be a huge load off my back."
C: “Well, for starters. All most of us know about Ar- about those with your condition is that they are... well, extremely controlled, to put it mildly. Most of that knowledge comes from vids and games and all manner of fictional sources, so I don't even know if that's actually part of their thing, but for the sake of asking... Have you ever had an encounter with a Justicar?"
N: "I can neither confirm nor deny that, unfortunately. Damn it. Uhhhhh... some of it, but not all of it, will probably be declassified in like fifty years or something. If we're both still around then, I can answer that question. But I think this is the only question that would run into that problem, so feel free to ask anything else you want."
C:"So if there's something to declassify that insinuates, at least in my view, at least a tip to the scales in the 'yes' direction. But we'll move on, for sure. Hopefully this one is a little more easily answered. Now, as I understand it, for obvious reasons you've spent your life outside of the Asari Republics entirely. What has life been like for you living away from the traditional asari space?"
N: "That... is quite a broad question, you could get a whole interview out of that, if you wanted. But if you want a short answer...
On Palaven, especially in the city I grew up in, there weren't very many asari. I spent my whole childhood trying to fit in with my turian neighbors, and I didn't really have other asari to interact with other than my parents. When I became an adult, I enlisted to join the Turian military, where I stayed for most of my life so far, then retired to the reserves several years ago. I ended up having to become a cabalist since I was a biotic, like almost all asari are. There was only one other asari in my cabal though, and we didn't really get along much. First deployment was to Irune, which was pretty peaceful. Also met my wife there, so it made up for having to wear an exosuit all the time. Second deployment was to Solregit, which was... not peaceful. There was a rebellion on the planet's northern hemisphere that wanted to secede from the Hierarchy, which I'm sure you've heard about before. And, of course, I helped defend Palaven during the Reaper War.
If there's anything you'd like me to go into more detail about, ask away."
C:"Wife? Can you explain how that happened? Were they aware of...everything?"
[Nara showed me some pictures here]
N:"We met through an online dating service, actually. I stated up-front in my profile that my condition made it impossible for me to meld with anyone, or... be intimate in a way that could risk me accidentally melding with them. But Jin wasn't really interested in either of those things, so we were both happy together in spite of that. I think I have some wedding photos in my omnitool I can show you.
That's her. That's Jin. And that's me next to her, but it's hard to tell it's me because the suit obscures my face."
C:"Awwww.
Those are lovely pictures. Many of us in our maiden stage don't settle down so easily. Do you think living in a mostly turian area growing up influenced your desire to commit to someone that early?
And if you don't mind another question to move us along... You seem relatively outspoken about your condition. Is there a reason you feel the need to take what most people would likely consider the risky position of putting yourself and your condition out there without secrecy?"
N: "To answer your first question, I would say yes, absolutely. Most of my turian peers, those who did settle down, at least, tended to do so in their thirties. I was thirty-eight years old when I married Jin, which is a little above average for a turian but I found out later that it was like, crazy low for an asari.
Your second question is kind of complicated because I have multiple reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, is that somebody needs to speak out. If any of the Ardat-Yakshi in the Republics tried to do an interview like this, they'd be killed or locked up by Justicars or by the government or an angry mob of other asari. I'm still worried sometimes that they'll try and do that to me anyway, even though I've never been to asari space, and if it's a justicar I don't stand any chance of winning a one-on-one fight with one. I have a responsibility to speak up for those who can't speak for themselves, while I still can.
Secondly, I'm from the Hierarchy and Turian culture places a very very strong value on honesty. Directly lying about my condition would go against everything I stand for.
Thirdly, if what I say informs people about Ardat-Yakshi, it lessens the risk of other Ardat-Yakshi accidentally or, though I'm sad to say it, intentionally injuring or killing innocent people. If even one life is saved, even if I get killed, speaking up will have been worth it.
Lastly, though this isn't that important since it only affects my personal life, but I am really, really, annoyed by stereotypes about asari promiscuity and especially asari maiden promiscuity. Letting it be known that I can't sleep with anyone because it could kill them cuts down on unwanted propositioning by, like, ninety percent."
C: "Thank you… Those answers definitely shed some light on why you're willing to be rather public about these things. It's a good goal, wanting less people to be hurt.
The idea of informing others actually leads quite nicely into my next question. I'm fairly certain I know the answer to this one- But are there any big myths that are simply false, or incomplete information that you think people should know the truth about?"
N: "Well, to start things off, basically everything in stuff like Galaxy of Fantasy is wrong. We don't have magic powers, we can't resurrect the dead, et cetera. Most of these should be fairly obviously false, so I'm not going to spend that much time on them because otherwise I'd have to spend all day ranting about stuff like that one human I met who claimed I was somehow a real-life vampire or something. I get so many vampire comparisons. It's annoying. Ardat-yakshi aren't vampires. There's like, no connection at all.
Anyway, to get back on track, there's one very important myth I would like to dispel. The ardat-yakshi medical condition is actually a spectrum. The lethal variant of the condition, which I have, is very very rare, but there are other variants that aren't lethal, and are much more common. At the mildest and most common end you have people who just give their meld partners temporary headaches, though most people with this variant don't actually know that what they have is technically a variant of the ardat-yakshi disease, and the Republics don't persecute them like they do with people like me. However, they're still infertile, just like anyone else on the A-Y spectrum. Further along the spectrum, the condition gets bad enough that each meld basically gives the ardat-yakshi's meld partner a concussion, and then even further along the spectrum comes permanent brain damage from each meld, and some ardat-yakshi can even leave their partners comatose in extreme cases. Or dead."
C:"Thank you for your answers. I can't imagine it's easy to talk about some of this, given the way the disorder is regarded. Now that we've discussed things that are false, what are some true things you wished other people knew about it?"
N: "Well, melding is actually addictive for Ardat-Yakshi, just as the Republics and Justicars say it is. I'm not exactly sure how addictive it is, since at the time of my only meld, which was before I knew I was an Ardat-Yakshi of course, I was already trying to fight off an Aurora addiction. I'm not sure what withdrawal effects were from that and what were from the meld, but it's definitely possible to fight off the addiction.
Secondly, Ardat-Yakshi serial killers, though I would like to emphasize that they are very, very rare and are in no way representative of the average A-Y sufferer, do actually exist. They normally don't get very far in the Republics proper, since an autopsy can reveal how the victims died and you can test suspects for the Ardat-Yakshi medical condition. But outside asari space, people don't know how to actually catch the serial killers because the Republics keep trying to suppress information about Ardat-Yakshi, and the serial killers can amass staggering body counts because of that. The Republics would seemingly let hundreds of innocent people die to... um... avoid making themselves look bad or something? I'm actually kind of confused as to why they don't just tell everyone the truth for once."
C: "Hm. That makes sense. But what about asari colonies, or even nations with asari majority or pluralities? Surely the condition can occur in them as well? Even if the Republics are, as you say, loath to reveal the truth, surely someone out there has been doing research too?
That's just a thought though, I don't actually expect you to know what groups or nations all across the Terminus might be doing."
N:"As far as I know, the condition, well, the forms of the condition severe enough to be dangerous, anyway, is rare enough that research isn't prioritized, especially since A-Y is basically a pureblood exclusive disease and asari colonies outside the Republics tend to have fewer purebloods."
C:"Well, I have two more questions planned, so we're really scooting along here. Thank you again for sitting down with me. Let's see... Are there any mistakes you've made in your efforts to spread awareness for this condition?"
N:"Well, with the fact that so few Ardat-Yakshi are able to speak openly about their conditions, when I talk to people about this, I'm basically the only Ardat-Yakshi that most people ever know about. Since I'm their only reference point, I worry that people will take my flaws and apply them to everyone with the condition. I admit, I'm not the best figurehead. I'm a convicted criminal, albeit for something I don't want to discuss here. I'm a veteran of a, to put it mildly, controversial war on Solregit. And I don't get along with people sometimes, along with other various personality flaws. But there are Ardat-Yakshi who are better people than I am. They simply never got the chance to speak out, like I do.
One more question, and then I have to get back to my ship."
C:"Of course, I don't want to take up too much of your time. I only had one last one planned anyway." Well we've spoken about many aspects of the situation as-it-is.
What, to you, would a more just policy look like in the Republics?"
N: "To put it simply, equality under the law. No preemptive targeting of Ardat-Yakshi based on what we might do, with the monasteries as a strictly voluntary institution. Ardat-Yakshi who have knowingly hurt or murdered people should still be arrested, like any other criminal. Ardat-Yakshi who do not harm others should be treated the same as anyone else. All I ask is that you judge each of us by our own actions, not the actions of others."
C:"A fine answer. One I think the vast majority of people can empathize with.
I understand. You probably have a schedule to keep. But it's been a pleasure getting to know you some, Nara. I look forward to writing this up."
With the interview concluded, I walked away with a few different feelings. I entered the conversation a little nervously. I had no more special knowledge of the AY condition than any other asari out there. Since I’m not a doctor I can’t speak to the accuracy of any of the medical specific claims my guest made. But I felt that her desire to make more information known was genuine. During the conversation there were certainly no feelings of threat or manipulation that I picked up on. And I sympathize greatly with the idea of wanting to be treated the same as everyone else. It was a very interesting conversation; and one that opens a window into a phenomena that is very rarely covered in anything but fiction. I hope you enjoyed the small look into the world of Ardat-Yakshi as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you.
#cdn#cerberus daily news#mass effect#mass effect rp#mass effect news#asari#ardat-yakshi#people#thessia#interview#asari republics#discrimination#health
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Loki: Religious Predestination v Free-Will
And how that affects his relationship with Mobius, narratively speaking
So. In case it isn’t clear by *gestures at my whole blog*, I’m a Supernatural blog. I’m a DeanCas blog. I haven’t been around much lately because there are very important, Orwellian things going on in Brasil, but I still keep up with the fandom. And, more important to this post, I still keep up with whatever Marvel’s doing, which means I get up at 7 am every Wednesday to watch Loki.
(Before we start, I’d like to note that I had never actually published any meta on Tumblr. The most I had done was give it to my philosophy and biology teachers as school essays. So, bear with me, okay?)
Well, what does Supernatural have to do with Loki? Not much, except for the narrative they very obviously share. The characters are different, their motivations too, and so are many of the variables that surround, but deep down, at the core, it is the same narrative of Religious Predestination versus Free-Will. And yes, that drives me all the way up the walls.
Religious Predestination is the idea that all events, past, present, and future have been foretold, “written”, predicted by divine, omnipotent beings. There are different types of Predestination, but the two I think fit the most here are Double Predestination and Middle Knowledge (yes, most of my knowledge of this comes from Wikipedia, sue me).
The first claims that God (or whichever omnipotent divine being is responsible for the predestination, in this case, the Time-Keepers) chooses from his own will who will be “condemned” and who will be “saved”. This applies to the show when we consider the fact that Loki has been “predestined” to be a villain. Is all he’s ever been, it’s what he was “born to be”, while the Avengers were all born to be heroes, according to the decrees of the Time-Keepers.
Meanwhile, Middle Knowledge defends that, before the creation of the world (or, in this case, the Sacred Timeline), God already knew every choice that every free-will possessing creature could make in any given circumstance, and He chose the “timeline” that most suited his will. This version also makes sense when we consider the existence of multiple timelines and that the Time-Keepers united them and decided what would be the proper flow of time.
Now, which exact version of Religious Predestination to pick isn’t exactly my point here. My point is that I) everything about the TVA screams Religious Predestination allegory, from the minutemen and other agents being “created” to the words “decree” and “dictate” being thrown around whenever Ravonna is on screen or someone’s talking about the Time-Keepers (who just so happen to be kind of worshipped at the TVA, as there are so many statues of them. They are treated like gods. They are gods.). Do you know what else is a Religious Predestination allegory? Blade Runner. Do you know what was one of the main inspirations for the TVA’s design? Blade Runner! That could mean nothing or that could mean something given *gestures vaguely at the rest of this post*.
So. Loki seeks to escape his “Destiny”. He wants to make his own choices without them being decreed by divine, omnipotent beings. He wants his successes and failures (but mostly his successes) to be his own, and, most important, he doesn’t want to be what everyone expects him to be. Not anymore. Not after what he saw at the TVA. Because everyone is telling him that he was “born to be” a villain (or, at the very least, a side character), he will now want to prove to everyone that he can be more than that. Because he is that “insubordinate, stubborn, and unpredictable” (even if he plans on overthrowing the TVA, I don’t think he sees that as an act of villainy. Maybe he never even planned on actually overthrowing the TVA, maybe he just wanted to get the Variant).
And Mobius, well. Mobius is a good TVA agent. Not all good, of course, ‘cause he has shown more than once that he doesn’t completely agree with how the TVA does things (“They should be scared” “Not of us”), even though, at the end of the day, he believes in them and accepts their mission because he believes they are doing the right thing (unless I’m completely wrong about Mobius, he is the true villain of the show, and has an evil plan of his own. Sorry, I saw a post and now I’m paranoid). So, what happens when an already questioning, though devoted, agent of the Time Variance Authority like Mobius comes into contact with someone like Loki, who pretty much worships Chaos? After having studied Loki’s whole life, and admittedly being a big fan? Well, this happens:
(If looks could kill indeed, Mobius)
Loki is supposed to drag Mobius out of his comfort zone at the TVA, to make him question things harder. Because it would seem “good people are never truly good”, so what’s behind the TVA’s Orwellian, Blade Runner-y scenario? And, even if they’re just really boring and full of paperwork, why should anyone dictate the proper flow of time? What about Free-Will, what about Chaos?
That is how this sort of narrative is supposed to go. Because Loki and Mobius are complete opposites in where they came from and who they wanna be, but at the same time, they’re much alike, as Ravonna even says. She accuses Mobius of being just as insubordinate and stubborn as Loki is. Loki was born and he wanted to be king because he thought (and was led to believe) it was his birthright. Now he wants to tell his own story more than ever ‘cause how dare the Time-Keepers predestinate Loki. Meanwhile, Mobius was created and all he’s ever known is the TVA’s order. But he is stubborn at heart and he craves humanity (the jet ski???), even if he believes he can’t have it because it’s too chaotic or simply not meant for him.
Mobius doesn’t see Loki as a villain (“no one bad is ever truly bad”?). He believes that Loki can be better. And Loki, if I’m reading this right, should help Mobius see that he’s, you know, kind of working for an authoritarian agency, what with “dictating the proper flow of time” and all that. (Yeah, yeah, I know. Multiversal war this, multiversal war that, but isn’t Doctor Strange’s next movie called Multiverse of Madness? Also, has anyone ever actually met the Time-Keepers? Or do all the TVA agents just blindly follow their orders? Maybe we’re bound to have a Multiverse by the end of this anyway.)
(And I’ve seen this narrative before. Faithless man meets angel, makes angel question Heaven’s orders, angel finds out Heaven is not that good after all, angel literally fall for the faithless man. In between, there is a lot of staring and standing too close and betrayals. It’s ridiculous how similar it is.)
So, where was I going with all of this…look, narratively speaking, from what we’ve seen so far, these two are a perfect match (and I’m not even mentioning Loki’s thing for older men in positions of power, which Mobius is completely aware of
). But there is a big, big distance between the narrative pointing towards something and the creative (though, let’s be honest, probably the executive) powers following through.
Now, it wasn’t just the Religious Predestination thing that caught my attention here, no. It wasn’t even the Blade Runner parallels (I’m quite sure Loki has Galatians Syndrome, but that’s a whole other post). It was how similar the plot of Loki is to the plot of Where Mischief Lies by Mackenzi Lee. It caught my attention to the point that I’m nervously glancing at my book while writing this. But I don’t want this to be too long, so I’m gonna put that on a separate post.
Anyway, I hope at least some of this made sense, and thank you so much for reading through my rambling!
#loki#loki series#loki x mobius#mobius#the loki meta no one asked for#i know the gifs are really bad#i made them myself#i had never giffed before#yes i have a thing for blade runner#yes im going nuts with this narrative#lokius#mobius m mobius#i don't expect any of this to make sense#it sounded more coherent in my head
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MCU Loki Ep 1 “Glorious Purpose” intensive analysis
So, I’ve seen the first “Loki” episode and, of course, I couldn’t stop myself from talking about it.
Beware about spoilers!
We start in New York 2012 and that part is merely “Avengers: Endgame” albeit they changed a bit the visual so there’s more focus on Loki. We’ve close up of Loki when he is ‘Captain America’, when he says by to the Hulk in the lift and so on.
It’s a good choice because he’s basically the only character the visual seems to focus on (the only other character who gets a close up is the Hulk yelling ‘No stairs!’), subtly telling us the story is about him.
On a sidenote though, in “Avengers: Endgame” you might see Loki walked vaguely near 2022 Tony Stark and we also have Scott Lang asking Tony if he wears Axe body spray, which he confirms. In “Loki” we don’t see these scenes but keep them in mind, they’ll be relevant later on.
Anyway as everyone knows Loki picks up the Tesseract and disappear.
We get the Marvel opening but without the usual ‘heroic’ music, this time it’s more ominous? Or maybe it’s just me. “Marvel studios” also gets written in green and gold on a black background.
It’s not the first time Marvel changed how it presented, in the first episode of “WandaVision” for example it was in black and white instead than in the usual red and silver but it’s still a nice touch.
So we resume… with the visual showing us an insect walking through the desert. Then the camera shows us the full view of the desert, informing us it’s the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.
Rather high in the sky a space portal opens for a moment and the next we know is that Loki is lying flat on his back on the ground among clouds of sand which, I guess, were raised due to him falling into the desert. Loki is without the chains holding his wrists (did the power of the Tesseract destroy them? The fall?) and easily pulls away the muzzle Thor put on him and from his confused expression as he sits up and see people coming close to him, I get the feeling he didn’t exactly plan to fall there and in such a way.
So I guess maybe this is his first attempt at using the Tesseract and he didn’t quite gave it a direction on WHERE he wanted it to take him? Because really falling from the sky flat on the ground in the middle of the Gobi desert among people who didn’t even talk his language doesn’t seem the sort of thing one would plan.
Anyway, despite being in an unfamiliar situation Loki finds a rock to stand over and introduces himself:
“I am Loki of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purpose.”
Which yes, it’s how he introduced himself to Fury in “The Avengers”.
The people there have no idea of what he’s saying and asks him who he is in their own language (Mongolian). It’s unclear if Loki gets what they’re saying.
In the comics all Asgardians, can speak every language thanks to the ‘Allspeak’ or ‘All-Tongue’, in which what they say is understood by every species in their own native language.
In “Thor” earlier script though there was this dialogue:
Darcy: So, how can you speak our language?
Volstagg: Your language? Ha! Silly girl, you're speaking ours.
In an interview Ray Stevenson (Volstagg) and Joshua Dallas (Fandral) discussed that bit.
Part of this seems to be set in a world where you guys fit in perfectly and the rest is very much on Earth.
Ray: Yes, but on Earth we started it all, you see. This is just one of the realms. This is where all the legends come from. All the ruins have gone into myths and Norse mythology. It’s all us, love. It was all us before that. They’ve forgot their place, really. They think, “Oh, you speak our language?” and it’s actually, “No, you’re speaking ours.”
Joshua: We invented it. [Ray Stevenson (Volstagg) and Joshua Dallas (Fandral) On Set Interview THOR]
The implication seemed to be that there was no Allspeak, they just spoke the same language because Asgardians invented it and Midgardians learnt it.
We also have this bit from “Avengers: Infinity War”:
Rocket: You speak Groot?
Thor: Yes, they taught it on Asgard. It was an elective.
This implies it’s not that Thor was magically granted the ability to understand Groot, he had to study his language.
So well, I would say that no, so far Asgardians didn’t have Allspeak in the MCU, hence, unless Loki studied Mongolian or his magic powers granted him Allspeak, he can’t get what whose people are saying to him. So really, I don’t think he wanted to end up in Mongolia, he should have thought he wanted the Tesseract to just bring him somewhere very far from New York City. That is unless it’ll turn out someone managed to interfere and have him fall there for some purpose.
But, back to Loki.
As I said he doesn’t really get to talk with those people because a door opens up out of nowhere and near to the Tesseract which is lying forgotten in the sand and people in an armoured suit and carrying weapons start to appear.
Loki is kind of confused but he recovers fast.
Putting up a tone of confidence he orders the guy not to touch the Tesseract, thinking they aim at getting it. Another door opens up out of nowhere and we get another person in armour. To save time I’ll say the woman is supposed to be Hunter B-15. I wonder if she’ll get a name beyond this or not.
The situation of the people at the TVA isn’t exactly great but I’m running ahead.
Now, I think Loki preferred to deal with the Mongolian people because although he can understand what Hunter B-15 says, it clearly makes no sense for him.
Honestly I’m not going to blame him.
“Appears to be a standard sequence violation. Branch is growing at a stable rate and slope. Variant identified.”
This isn’t the kind of sentence that makes sense in a conversation, if you aren’t familiar with the TVA.
Hunter B-15 doesn’t care what she says doesn’t make sense to him and wouldn’t make sense to any other normal person. She calls him ‘Variant’ and talks as if everyone should know and respect the Time Variance Authority as an authority to defer and obey to.
I love Loki’s reply here:
“It's been a very long day, and I think I've had my fill of idiots in armored suits telling me what to do, so, if you don't mind, this is actually your last chance. Now get out of my way.”
He had a very bad day, he’s probably still bruised and sore due to his ‘meeting’ with the Hulk and his fall from the sky, he might very well be exhausted and he’s clearly confused but he acts as if he’s in control and won’t let himself be intimidated. I love him.
As he moves close Hunter B-15 hits him and informs him although he’s moving at 1/16th speed he’s feeling all the pain in real time.
Now… from when “Loki” trailers had started going around there had been a debate if the TVA is the good guys or the bad guys.
I’ll jump a bit ahead and tell you they clearly believe they’re the good guys.
But just from this bit you can start to question the idea they’re good guys.
They aren’t just acting as Vigilantes but they’re claiming an authority that no one on planet Earth gave them and demanding submission, not hesitating to beat people when they do not complain.
I know, some of you are thinking that Loki is a bad guy so serves him right but that’s not really the point because they aren’t even beating him for what he did to New York but for a crime he didn’t know he was committing, acting with an authority no one on Earth gave them. They just took it. And they would have taken it if the one picking up the Tesseract and ending up in Mongolia were to be a random person that out of bad luck had picked up the Tesseract and had ended activating it by accident.
This is not about Loki, this is how the TVA operates and it’s scary.
I don’t know if “Loki” will want to dig into police brutality and I honestly don’t dare to hope in it but it would be an interesting turn.
Hunter B-15 seems to be enjoying her work. I won’t call her evil yet, it’s clear she thinks she has the authority to do so, that the TVA enabled her to think she’s doing a good thing but she doesn’t seem to have… hesitation in doing so. One can still do his duty and not enjoy beating up people and causing them pain, yet the dialogue gives me the impression she’s very cool with beating up resisting Variants who has no idea they’re Variant and causing them pain.
Maybe it’s just me, maybe she’ll prove she’s actually a gentle soul but, for now, she doesn’t look as such. We’ll see.
Anyway she straps a collar around Loki’s neck and then, finally, she let him fall at normal speed before two of the men with her grabs him and carry him away while she picks up the Tesseract and orders to ‘reset the timeline’, which, at first I thought would mean they use that sort of mechanism to send back the time, erasing Loki’s appearance from the timeline. I’m not sure now. It might as well erase everything there. Loki turns to see what this mechanism does and from the look on his face it doesn’t seem anything good.
I hope not but well, in a way, sending everything back of some minutes erases lives that could have possibly be lived differently so yeah, in a way they erased lives. It’s the dilemma of changing time after all.
Whatever, Loki is dragged through the door that opens out of nowhere and appears at the TVA. The door disappears behind him and he has no idea where he is.
Now I guess it’s a good point to point out how people had been wondering which kind of Loki this one was, if he was based on the Loki on “Thor”, the one in “The Avengers”, the one in “Thor: The Dark World” or the one in “Thor: Ragnarok”.
In itself he can’t really be based on neither of them.
Loki’s characterization in “Thor” is split in two, there’s Loki prior to discovering the truth, and there’s Loki after discovering the truth, mad in shock and grief until he realizes his father would never accept him and let go of Gungnir.
This Loki can’t obviously be the Loki pre-truth but he can’t even be the one post it, as in that one the pain was still too new and raw and mixed with the desperation of denial and the attempt at ‘fixing things’.
So, can he be “The Avengers” Loki?
Marvel’s site confirmed that during “The Avengers” unknown to Loki, he was influenced by the sceptre as well. Very likely he wasn’t influenced in Clint Barton or Erik Selvig style, as the site says:
“Gifted with a Scepter that acted as a mind control device, Loki would be able to influence others. Unbeknownst to him, the Scepter was also influencing him, fuelling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth.”
Basically the sceptre on Loki works in a manner similar to how it worked on the Avengers when they started arguing in the Helicarrier. It warped his perception to the point he might have seen them as his most hated enemies, making difficult for him to see Thor was extending his hand to him or that the people were actually just scared but it didn’t make him a mindless, loyal servant. A different type of control on him but one that’s no less dangerous. Anyway I’ve talked at length about it while replying to a post so I’ll just link it here.
Loki is now very far from the sceptre so the mind stone shouldn’t be able to influence him any longer. As a result he’s probably more in control of his emotions.
So… “Thor: The Dark World” Loki?
Close enough but not quite, as that Loki had to go through Odin telling him some pretty awful things and spending a year forgotten by Odin and Thor in a jail.
Even more clearly he can’t be “Thor: Ragnarok” Loki as that one lived a huge chunk of things he hadn’t lived yet… never mentioning Waititi wanted “Thor: Ragnarok” to be his own thing, not a continuation of “The Avengers” and “Thor: The Dark World”…
“I was lucky enough they didn’t force me to acknowledge things- there were certain things in the film, like the play, which makes fun of the scene in The Dark World where Loki dies, but there’s a point to that play, sort of to recap what happened, but also to tell the audience, “This is not what you think it’s going to be, this film is not going to be a continuation of that. It’s its own thing, and what you think you expect from this film ends at this play.”” [Empire Podcast Spoiler Special: Thor: Ragnarok with Taika Waititi]
… while Loki is an alternate continuation of “The Avengers” so it has to be more “The Avengers” compliant than “Thor: Ragnarok”.
In short this Loki is his own Loki… or a Loki we hadn’t seen yet because we weren’t really shown much of Loki post sceptre influence, pre one year of solitary confinement.
Back to the story two things are interesting to point out.
One is that there’s a Variant Skrull as well in the TVA.
The other is that once there the Tesseract lost part of its shiny light as if it powered down.
Last but not least, instead than a futuristic look the TVA has the look of midcentury modern aesthetic as if, instead than going in the future ore remaining in the present, we’ve gone back in time.
Anyway, as another prisoner is dragged into the room, Loki tries to escape and discovers that Hunter B-15 can rewind his time so he’s back where he started. She then gives the Tesseract to a man at a desk, telling him to log it as evidence.
The guy, I’ll spoiler you and tell you his name is Casey, has no idea what it is and it’s Loki who has to explain him it’s the Tesseract and one should be very careful with it. Casey merely find it sounding dumb.
This is our first clue that to the TVA the Tesseract doesn’t matter at all. We’ve finished Phase 3 with the infinity stones raised at the level of immensely powerful artifact but, for the TVA, they’re nothing.
This is the first blow that the “Loki” series gives to the MCU as we previously knew it.
On a sidenote it’s nice Loki explained what it was to the unsuspecting desk man. If this weren’t the TVA he might have ended in the Gobi desert as well just by handling it carelessly.
Hunter B-15 drags Loki to a door and Loki tries to threaten her only to be showed inside that door.
Have you noticed how no one read Loki his own rights so far? That’s because he has none and the story is about to make it even more clear.
In the room there’s a robot of some sort (which I find slightly creepy despite its smile) which would like for Loki to undress. At Loki’s refusal accompanied with a comment that “This is fine Asgardian leather” the robot, without any warning, merely disintegrates his clothes.
Some assumed it was played for laugh but the music doesn’t suggest it, and Loki is clearly upset as he stutters when he speaks again. In real life, when you’re arrested, in many states your belonging are confiscated but they will be returned to you once you’re released or they’re returned to your family.
The TVA destroys them.
A trap door opens below Loki and he finds himself in another room, dressed up in TVA uniforms for Variants.
There’s something I think I need to mention which is I love how the show is characterizing TVA desk people.
The guy we’ve met before had his own character which we could guess despite the few lines and moments in which he appeared.
This new guy is also characterized.
He has a kitten in the room, which moves away slightly as Loki appears, probably scared and a mug with the image of a kitten. It’s tiny details but they made him a person instead of merely something that’s there.
He pushes in front of Loki a huge stack of papers telling him to sign to verify this is everything Loki said. Loki’s two following comments get printed and he’s demanded to sign them as well.
It’s another aspect of the TVA that’s actually unpleasant.
The amount of paper is huge and it would take a lot to read it all in order to check it but… the truth is the request is impossible. People isn’t made so that they can remember everything they’ve said, exactly as they’ve said it and it gets even more troublesome if there isn’t the other half of the conversation but just what we said.
So it’s not even a point to discuss if Loki really said just that stack of paper and nothing more or that stack of paper is too small, or if maybe there’s more paper he’ll have to sign or if that stack of paper only cover his time as a Variant and not the time in which he followed the Sacred Timeline.
The request doesn’t just make the TVA look like a bureaucratic place but shows it demands impossible tasks from its victims.
Oh, another interesting thing I noticed is that the camera is at a slightly lower point when it is on the TVA guy, so, despite the guy being seated, it gives him the impression of being higher than us viewers. On the over side when the camera is on Loki, it’s far from him, with the result of making him look small.
It’s a fine detail that gives us a certain subconscious impression.
The TVA guy stares at Loki as the latter gives up and start signing. It seems he only signed one paper, without even trying to read them all. I wish they had let us see how Loki signs. I wonder if he writes his name with runes, since the inscription on Thor’s hammer was in rune.
We’ll see, we’ll find out Loki knows how to write in English so he might use it to sign.
Anyway as soon as he finishes signing another trapdoor opens below him and he finds himself in another room.
So far the TVA is reminding me more and more of “The House that sends you mad” from “The Twelve Tasks of Asterix”. Well, of a very dark Variant of it to be exact, a Variant that reminds me of something way more unpleasant, but we’ll get there. In the next room Loki is asked:
“Please confirm to your knowledge that you are not a fully robotic being, were born an organic creature, and do in fact possess what many cultures would call a soul.”
Loki just asks if there are many people who don’t know if they’re robot and this is taken as a confirmation at which he’s urged to move through it. At Loki’s question he’s told if he actually were a robot and didn’t know it, the machine would melt him from the inside out.
Before thinking the situation is absurd let’s remember Vision exists in the Marvel universe and he’s a robot and he could have been programmed so that he wasn’t aware of this or might lose awareness of it due to a malfunctioning.
So if a Vision variant unaware to be a robot where to show up at the TVA they would just melt him from the inside out, no big deal.
The machine turns out to be a photographic machine, which doesn’t take Loki’s mug shoot but photograph his temporal area, which Loki has no idea what is and no one bothers to explain him.
Again, through the whole procedure there’s no request of consent nor explanations, Loki has no rights for the TVA, he’s merely supposed to comply.
Loki ends up in another room with another ‘convict’. They’re both demanded to take a ticket. The first convict refuses, Loki complain there’s just two of them so it’s useless but complies and put it in his pocket. Loki clearly has better manners or has figured out there’s no point discussing and is bidding his time to when arguing or rebelling might be worth something.
As Loki complains...
“This is a mistake. I shouldn't even be here.”
...we’re introduced with Miss Minute. Miss Minute is a cartoon watch which is supposed to FINALLY help people catch up before they stand to trial for their crimes. We’ll find out that Miss Minute is there not for the convicts’ benefit but for us viewers’ benefit as it explains us the origins of the TVA.
If we want to stretch things it might be there also for the TVA benefit as it might give them a sense of legitimacy.
Anyway Miss Minute’s speech feels like Odin’s speech at the beginning of “Thor”.
Is a self glorifying narration in which they paint themselves as the heroes and something that exist for other people’s benefit.
But it only paints the TVA in an even darker light because when it explains how one becomes a Variant it says:
“But sometimes, people like you veer off the path the Time-Keepers created. We call those Variants. Maybe you started an uprising, or were just late for work. Whatever it was, stepping off your path created a nexus event, which, left unchecked, could branch off into madness, leading to another multiversal war. But, don't worry, to make sure that doesn't happen, the Time-Keepers created the TVA and all its incredible workers. The TVA has stepped in to fix your mistake and set time back on its predetermined path. Now that your actions have left you without a place on the timeline, you must stand trial for your offenses.”
A break here.
From this little bit we’re introduced to the idea there’s only 1 timeline because each time another timeline could be born, the TVA erases it. This begs the question of how we’re supposed to judge this bit in “Avengers: Infinity War”
Stephen Strange: [Panting] I went forward in time to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict.
Peter Quill: How many did you see?
Stephen Strange:14,000,605.
Tony Stark: How many did we win?
[Dr.Strange stares intently at Tony for a moment.]
Stephen Strange: [Pause] One.
If there’s only 1 timeline, it seems impossible there could be 14,000,605 futures… but actually the key might be that there could be 14,000,605 futures… but the TVA erases them. The time stone might show those futures who had the possibility to be born… and that the TVA squashes under their feet, all for the sake to make canon their favourite future, while all the others have to cease and desist. If this is true I do wonder if the actions of the TVA can be undone, so that we can have “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”.
Back to “Loki” and to what Miss Minute said, which is pretty worrisome and not at all uplifting.
I mean… we can speculate who starts an uprising might be someone bad (which is not necessarily the truth, what about the people involved in the French Revolution or the American Revolutionary War or the Resistance in WW2?) but a poor guy who’s just late for work?
They don’t really see the difference between him and a guy starting an uprising because for them the matter isn’t what they were trying to do or which kind of people they were, just that they created another timeline, a crime they clearly weren’t aware to commit as no one warned them about how this was forbidden by this self imposed authority.
Loki clearly finds all this idiotic but then he hears the previous guy arguing with some sort of guard who demands his ticket. Now the previous guy is clearly a dumb liar, as insists he asked for the ticket but wasn’t given one, when he was loud enough and alone enough everyone in the room could notice he was the one refusing to take a ticket.
Anyway at this point the guard vaporizes him. In short they just murdered him, without trial or anything for the terrible crime of ‘not taking a ticket’.
Loki is appropriately shocked and hurries to get his ticket.
Something that’s also worth mentioning is the whole TVA is clearly structured to make people feel powerless.
There’s no explanation, they’re forcefully dragged in an unknown place by people claiming authority from an unknown structure, they’re forced to comply, they’re stripped naked against their will, dressed all the same, handled like objects who’re not called by their name but ‘Variant’ with even assigned a number, threatened to be melted if they don’t know they’re robot (and what if they know? They don’t take their picture or they just melt them?) and subjected to an explanation in form of a cartoon that feels absurd and that merely has the point of legitimizing the TVA as heroes and them as criminals.
Anyway Loki finds his ticket and shows it in a scene that reminds me of “Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade”. Do you remember when Indy and his father board a Zeppelin to leave Germany and Indy tosses a Nazi out of the window and explains his actions by saying the guy was without ticket so everyone shows his ticket at him?
Anyway at this point we’re shown the title, “Loki" with a filter that makes it look like an old movie and the letters changing font.
Okay, I’m a bit late but I should probably mention that, form when Loki go to the TVA the colouring had a huge abundance of yellow and brown with basically no blue (except a little in the Miss Minute cartoon) which gives an idea of this being like an old movie. The music is kind of creepy and there’s a clock tickling as we see it.
Which is an interesting idea. Even though the TVA seems so modern, furniture and the structure of the place felt all but modern. Even the robot that stripped Loki felt as if it just came out from a very old and outdated idea of how a futuristic robot would look like.
We resume the story but this time we’re at Aix-En-Provence, in France in 1549.
We’re in a beautiful gothic church and one of the TVA agents, explains that the corpses on the ground belongs to some Minutemen (the name for the TVA agents who do field work apparently) who responded to a routine Nexus event. As soon as they arrived someone jumped on them.
Mobius is there as well, and he’s apparently playing the part of the detective as he’s studying the corpses.
Hunter U-92, another poor guy who apparently has no name but just a number clearly suspect of someone and tells so to Mobius who agrees as the stab wounds look consistent with the previous, the Minutemen were hit on surprise and the reset charge (remember? The stuff that erase the deviation from the timeline) is gone.
Oh we’re also told this is the 6th attack in the last week THAT THEY KNOW OF. I hope for them it’s Saturday, because this would mean ‘only 1’ attack each day. This would be rather terrible if they were just at Monday since the day hadn’t even ended yet.
Now… remember when I was comparing the hunters of the TVA to police and wonder if the show would dig into police brutality?
Well, we’ve this scene in which someone enters in the place and Hunter U-92 is immediately ready to attack him with the wand they used against Loki or some other similar TVA weapon.
Only the one who got in is, apparently, just a kid, not the dangerous variant they’re searching and it’s Mobius who has to stop Hunter U-92 from attacking a kid who, for all they know, is completely unrelated to the crime, a kid that’s far from them and weaponless.
I don’t want to know what would have happened in Mobius hadn’t told him ‘Wait, stand down! Stand down’ (note how he has to say ‘stand down’ twice) and had physically stopped him in his track with his arm.
Mobius approaches the kid, speaking gently in French, apologizing for Hunter U-92’s behaviour, saying he’s just an imbecile.
Hunter U-92, annoyed by his comment, reminds him that he too can speak every language on the timeline, and that in short he can understand what Mobius is saying. The sentence though is more for our benefit, telling us those men can use the TVA version of Allspeak or whatever the “Loki” series wants to call it.
There’s a lovely visual showing us the kid and Mobius met in front of a beautiful stained glass window which depicts Satan.
To get the boy to talk Mobius draws a stick figure on some sort of small tablet he has and then passes it to the boy, telling him to tap on it. The boy does and the figure becomes a walking holographic projection which causes the boy to smile instead than assuming it’s witchcraft and running away screaming.
Okay, we are in 1549 and not in middle age, but that would still feel like magic even at the end of Renaissance age. But whatever, boys sometimes can put aside their fear for something that amuses them and this one had no troubles dealing with the guy killing all those TVA agents.
Anyway Mobius asks the boy if he knows who did that and the boy conveniently does. He points to the figure in the glass stained window, a horned demon, likely Satan. We might think it’s symbolic, that for the boy whoever kills someone is a demon… but… wait a moment.
Anyway Mobius says the boy shouldn’t worry because that devil is afraid of them and that they will put the boy back to where he belongs.
The boy smiles and Mobius notices his teeth are blue. It turns out that the ‘devil’ has gifted the kid with some… candies? Bubblegums?
I’ve no idea if those ‘Kablooie’ are actually some kind of American food, sorry about it but it’s clear although the kid has pointed to a devil, he wasn’t so scared by him to turn down his gift or to not try it out. And a devil giving him a gift doesn’t really feel like someone who wanted to harm him, despite the boy seeing him.
I get this feeling this ‘devil’ is targeting specifically TVA hunters only instead than the timeline or people inside it. He leads them somewhere and then attacks and dispose them. If he’s doing so because the TVA hurt him or because he wants to control the timeline that’s up to speculation.
We’ll later be said this guy is another Loki variant, and in this scenes we were given clues to figure out ourselves, like how he stabbed the TVA agents and how the boy pointed to a demon or, more specifically, to a horned figure, and we knows Loki wears horns when in his full Asgardian attire.
Anyway Mobius takes the ‘candies?’ ‘bubblegums?’ away from the boy and orders Hunter U-92 to run the candies for sequence period and temporal aura… not that Hunter U-92 thinks they’ll find anything but he’s worried because the branch is nearing red line and they need to go. In my understanding if it reaches the red line it could risk creating a multiverse.
Mobius sends the boy to play outside while Hunter U-92 orders to set a reset charge.
Again we aren’t explained what a ‘reset charge’ works.
However we’ve seen the cartoon with Miss Minute and in that one there was a reset charge and when it activated it didn’t rewind the timeline… it erased it. So the creepy things is it could be this reset charge just… destroys everything, erases all the lives in that alternate timeline because, in a way, they’re all Variants, and the TVA disposes of Variants.
Well, I hope I’m wrong because otherwise it means each time the TVA resetted a timeline they basically killed each life living in that universe, which would make Thanos, who ‘only’ killed half the population once, a rather tame mass murderer.
Anyway before the timeline is resetted another TVA person joins Mobius and it shows him a file about the just apprehended Loki. Maybe nobody except me cares but they had previously shown an image of a Loki file and in it there were question marks on where the race was. Now they’ve written ‘Frost Giant’. Either the file shown was for another Loki Variant or they managed to remember Loki was a Frost Giant and fix the file.
It could be the file for another variant though, as his height in it is given as 6’4” while in this file he’s 6’2” (1.88m) which is Tom Hiddleston’s true height (for who’s curious 6’4” is Jeff Goldblum’s height… not that I think the Grandmaster is walking around pretending to be Loki because well, this would be weird…)… or they messed up Loki’s height as well. We’ll see.
As I know some have wondered about it, Loki’s eyes are given as blue and not as green… which is correct as Tom Hiddleston said:
Loki is a sexy villain, but that’s not part of his ambition, is it? He doesn’t seem to be interested in love or sex but he has this sexuality about him, maybe it’s his lust for power. What do you think of Loki as a sexy beast?
Tom Hiddleston: [Laughs] That’s the first time anyone has ever used that phrase about Loki. It’s fascinating isn’t it? I don’t know because it’s not a part of the conscious construction. I take relish in playing him. I think there’s a physical self-possession about him, a self-acceptance. Of course I’ve been very exacting about his physicality. You know, I was born with very blonde, curly hair, and a mixture of Scottish and English genes, and my complexion is very ruddy and healthy. In making him with this raven black hair and blanching my face of all color, it changes my features. Suddenly my blue eyes look a lot bluer, which lends a severity to my face. And even my own smile has a distorted menace to it. Whatever comes through me naturally is distorted. It’s almost like a filter on a light. ['Thor: The Dark World’: Tom Hiddleston on boom times for evildoers]
Which implies he never wore green contact lenses to play Loki.
Whatever, we’ll go on.
We’re back to the TVA and Loki’s trial starts.
He’s taken in front of the judge Ravonna Renslayer who addresses to him as Laufeyson. Except for a small comic later retconned in “Thor: The Dark World”, this is the first time in the MCU Loki is called Laufeyson… which is a little sad as he never identified as such (the closest he goes is to say he’s Loki of Jotunheim when he tries to trick Malekith) yet meaningful as well as the TVA evidently never recognized Odin’s ‘adoption’ as valid. For them he’s not Odinson, he’s Laufeyson because that’s what he’s born. ‘Loki Odinson’ in his file is labelled as an alias same as ‘God of Mischief’, nothing more.
But well, they aren’t really interested in his name, for them he’s ‘Variant L1130, AKA Loki Laufeyson’. Renslayer informs him he’s charged with sequence violation 7-20-89 which can mean everything and nothing at the same time as, to us, and to Loki, is just a collection of numbers, and asks him how does he plead.
Loki tries, as it’s his habit, to put up a polite yet confident front.
He claims a god doesn’t plead and has been a very enjoyable pantomime, but he'd like to go home… and boys, we know he would really like to do so. He’s putting up a front because we saw how uncomfortable and scared he was through his permanence at the TVA.
In an old interview that’s sadly no more available Tom Hiddleston said:
“The thing with Loki is that, if he’s afraid, he won’t show it. He’s been highly trained, through the experience of his slightly traumatic life, to shield his fears.”
Why didn’t we see him scared in “The Avengers” even though he took risks in it too while now we’re allowed to catch glimpses of his fear here and there?
“The Avengers” had to paint him as the big adversary, the great obstacle the heroes have to overcome.
Are we going to feel that bad for you in this movie, or are you gonna – ?
Tom Hiddleston: Yeah. He does some pretty nasty things. On one level, it was like, I knew I had to up the ante because there’s seven superheroes that make up the Avengers, and, in order for the film to work, the film is the most redemptive, feel-good, kind of fist-pumping story. And, in order for the audience to be pumping their fists for Iron Man, and Hulk, and Thor, and Captain America, they need to overcome a really big obstacle. And, unfortunately, that big obstacle is me. [LAUGHS]. I hope I have retained a sense of his kind of emotional damage [like we saw in Thor]. There is a lovely scene with Chris Hemsworth where you see a glimmer of his — his vulnerability, but… he’s yielded to the dark side, you know? [Interview With Tom Hiddleston AKA Loki]
In this episode the Loki we met isn’t the adversary, he’s the main character, so we get glimpses of his true mind. He’s afraid or confuse, yet he reacts to all that by putting up a front, by presenting himself as confident and in control. It started from when he found himself in an unfamiliar situation, facing the Mongolic people and it continues and will continue and mind you, it’s a good and popular technique to hide your fear.
By presenting yourself as confident, your opponent might believe you might have some reason to be confident and be more careful and hesitate in attacking you, and sometimes this is all the advantage you need.
Renslayer remains unfazed, as she likely knows Loki has no advantage over her. She knows he’s powerless, in an unfamiliar environment he knows nothing about, forced to wear a collar that somehow controls his time, submitted to rules he knows nothing about and surrendered by enemies.
Loki isn’t the first who was carried in front of her and she knows he won’t be the last. The system is unjust and the trial a farce but she’s persuaded for it to be righteous and the right way to deal with ‘Variants’ as this leads to the greater good of avoiding wars into the Multiverse so justice and fairness are clearly not something she has to care about.
Anyway she pressures the issue and, understanding she won’t let go, Loki shifts the blame on the Avengers, pointing out how he came into possession of the Tesseract because THEY traveled through time, according to Loki in a ‘last-ditch effort to stave off his ascent to God King’.
So yes, even though he was soundly beaten by them and he’s in a bad spot Loki still tries to play highty and mighty and not cower up in fear. But how did he know about the Avengers travelling through time? We saw he noticed the whole thing with the case, but how did he knew the Avengers were involved and not some other guy?
Remember how I mentioned that “Avengers: Endgame” had Loki walking vaguely near 2022 Tony Stark and we Scott Lang asking Tony if he wears Axe body spray?
Well, Loki clearly has a fine nose because he recognized the Axe body spray coming off from 2022 Tony Stark and figured out he was a future version of 2012 Tony Stark.
It’s kind of a pity they hadn’t kept these bits in the series but whatever, I get why they might have cut them.
Loki, like most of the fandom, blames them as the Time Criminals and suggests if Rendlayer were to provide him a taskforce he could eliminate them for her.
As he spoke we see Mobius intruding in the trial and sitting down as it carries on.
Back to Renslayer, she isn’t interested in the Avengers, claiming they were supposed to go back in the past but Loki wasn’t supposed to grab the Tesseract and escape.
Loki laughs at the absurdity of the statement and demands to know who decided this.
The answer is the Time-Keepers who dictate the proper flow of time so that Renslayer can dictate the proper flow of time according to their dictation.
And you start to see the horror of this system.
The Time-Keepers arbitrarily decide which is the proper flow of time and impose it on everyone. They basically make the rules according to what they like the most… and, of course, they don’t inform anyone of which ones the rules should be.
When Loki picked up the Tesseract and escaped there was nowhere a big warning sign saying ‘if you do so you commit a crime’. He didn’t even know there were Time-Keepers and a sacred timeline and the TVA did nothing to fix this.
While in many countries you’re supposed to know the law and pledging ignorance is not an excuse, the TVA is a self imposed and not recognized Authority of whose existence nobody knows anything which dictate rules according to the Time-Keepers’ tastes.
There’s the risk of total annihilation due to a multiverse war?
Fair worry but then why they get to decide how the sacred timeline should be? Which are their criteria for it? Why the Avengers going back to time was okay?
Although they saved lives, the whole things was incredibly messy as discussed in “The Falcon And The Winter Soldier”… and that series only touched the tip of the iceberg.
But whatever. The Time-Keepers, which Loki defines gods because that’s basically how the TVA paints them, at the moment remind me of the gods of gods in the “Loki: Agent of Asgard” comic and with them the whole idea everything is a tale.
The Sacred timeline feels like nothing else but the tale the Time-Keeper enjoyed, their canon, as if they were Marvel. Everything else is a fictional Au written by fans that gets a ‘cease and desist letter’ and is erased from the net.
Anyway Loki is feed up. He decides to plea ‘guilty’ but not of the crime they’re trying to pin on him but of… using his magic against them. Only his magic doesn’t work.
Hunter B-15 is probably the first who realizes what’s going on and, chuckling, explains it to Renslayer who’s not catching up. As Loki gets angry for not managing to use them, Renslayer explains magic powers don’t work at the TVA, which might explain why she didn’t recognize what Loki was doing while Hunter B-15, used to fieldwork, did. Renslayer might have never seen people using magic powers but Hunter B-15 might have done so.
Only no, because in an interview Gugu Mbatha-raw said about her character:
“She had a history of a hunter and a more military role like Wunmi’s character” [Many Sides of Loki | Marvel Studios' Loki Cast & Creators]
So, no, I’ve no idea why she didn’t catch up. Was she playing dumb? Has she been so out of the field she didn’t recognize the signs? Or, despite being the judge at Loki’s trial she hadn’t read his file and didn’t know he could do magic? It can be, as I said the trial is a farce so she might not have cared to document herself beyond a certain point.
Hunter B-15 is still laughing. She’s enjoying this.
Anyway she decides Loki is guilty and sentenced to be ‘reset’… you know, like the timelines.
Note again how Loki had no rights in this. He had no lawyer, he wasn’t explained things, he was just asked how he pled but that one was more a pro-forma than anything else. They had already decided he wasn’t allowed to do what he did and therefore guilty.
The trial was a farce to give the TVA a semblance of justice but it’s all a show.
Back to Loki, he has no idea what they mean with ‘reset’ and they didn’t even have the courtesy to explain it to him. Angrily he says:
“You ridiculous bureaucrats will not dictate how my story ends!”
To which Renlayer replies:
“It's not your story, Mr. Laufeyson. It never was.”
So yeah, now they’ve started with the references to stories which are another subtle jab at the “Loki: Agent of Asgard” plotline.
By the way, keep in mind Renslayer’s reply.
As Loki complains they have no idea what he’s capable of and tries resisting being taken away Mobius speaks up.
Fundamentally Mobius wants Renslayer to pass Loki to him as he has a plan.
There’s clearly a story behind the relation between Renslayer and Mobius, they aren’t just professional to each other, they’re closer than that.
Renslayer agrees although she says he’ll get the blame for whatever goes wrong.
Mobius looks at Loki, Loki stops struggling and asks him who he is and Mobius smiles in a satisfied manner and doesn’t reply.
The scene shifts to them walking through the place, Loki threatening to burn the place to the ground. Mobius clearly doesn’t take him seriously, saying he can start from his desk.
The fact is… Loki is powerless and Mobius knows. We know too, we’ve seen how the trial went. However there might be more at play. Mobius knows the whole of Loki’s life which as far as we know, included only episodes of violence post discovering who he was and during his permanence on Earth.
To him Loki’s statement might feel more an expression of frustration than a sincere threat.
As they walk Loki happens to see the world outside the place he’s in from what looks like a window. He’s surprised and Mobius encourages him to have a look.
Loki points out he though there was no magic there. I’m not sure if he’s saying so because he sees car flying and assume it’s magic.
In “Thor” and “Thor: The Dark World” magic was compared to science so maybe that’s what he’s saying, that the world he sees seems to advanced.
Mobius insists there isn’t magic there so Loki says that’s not real.
They exchange some more lines in which Mobius continues to play on Loki’s declaration he’ll burn the place down.
I’m curious.
We know Mobius is actually chasing another Loki Variant, one who killed many TVA agents (we’ll see some of them got burned down too).
He’ll later claim this Loki is not dangerous, but what’s the difference between this Loki and the other? What makes the other dangerous? And can’t this Loki get dangerous too?
Is Mobius doing the same that Loki does?
Acting confident and joking about Loki burning down the place because he actually fears he might have the potential to just do so if not handled correctly?
We’ll see.
Once they’re on a lift Mobius decides to introduce himself as ‘Agent Mobius’ and offers him his hand to shake… and I’m reminded of this scene from “The Avengers”.
Natasha: But you figured I'd come.
Loki: After. After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate.
The TVA doesn’t see what they’ve done as torture or even as ‘wrong’… but many states wouldn’t approve of some sort of vigilante capture a person for something THEY labelled a crime, force him to undress, destabilize him to the point he’s not even sure if he’s a human or a robot, put him through a mock trial and then threaten him to be ‘reset’.
It’s in dystopic universes you find authorities who can just arrest you for breaking laws they made up without your knowledge and then decide of your life.
Mobius might not be looking like Natasha but, after all this, someone acting like a friend would make him automatically more cooperative and, in a way, it does.
Hunter B-15 had to drag him where Loki just follows Mobius more or less quietly.
Anyway, back to the story.
Mobius decided to introduce himself in a friendly manner and I would want to remark Loki asked him who he was when they were at the trial so this is a rather late introduction which he might be doing right now because we just hear Loki sighing as he’s clearly unnerved.
Mobius is playing the role of the good cop in a way, trying to gain his trust.
Loki doesn’t handshake, he’s not going to make friend so easily, but asks him if he’s taking him somewhere to kill him.
Mobius says no, that’s where he just was which, if it’s not a lie, means that resetting Loki would have meant to actually kill him. So again… what about the timelines that get resetted? All the people in them get killed? The place gets razed to the ground? Disintegrated? What?
Mobius’ reply might be truthful but it’s also clever because he’s setting himself up as Loki’s ‘saviour’. Others wanted to kill Loki but he? He just saved him which begs the question of ‘shouldn’t Loki be a good boy and comply with Mobius’ requests and trust him and all the stuff?’
Now… I know that people feel like Mobius is a good guy because he saved Loki but the story will make clear he didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart… but merely because he needs him.
We’ve seen Mobius with the boy before, he made him comfortable so that the boy complied and gave him info, which is one of the many interrogating techniques.
That’s what Mobius is doing here.
Anyway we proceed with the best known scene of “Loki” as it was in the very first trailer.
I remember people discussing Mobius’ words about Loki liking to talk, as in the first movie he was often silent and quiet.
Well, to be honest if the movie had been left in his original cut Loki would have surely talked more, but what stuck with me watching “Thor” wasn’t so much that Loki was often quiet, but that many times he attempts to speak but he’s silenced.
On the Rainbow Bridge Volstagg asks him:
Volstagg: What happened? Your silver tongue turn to lead?
…which means Loki normally was skilful at persuading people to believe what they say or to do what they want them to do, which doesn’t necessarily makes him a chatter, but surely someone who knows how to talk. And we see that in “The Avengers” when nobody is there to interrupt him he allows himself to monologue. It’s an interpretation, of course, with whom people can disagree.
Anyway Loki decides to talk with Mobius. It’s not a stupid decision. Mobius is clearly not seeing him as a threat but he’s not being overly hostile either. Loki is completely a fish out of the water so it’s in his own interest to play along with Mobius, talk with him and find out more information about the place. In fact the first thing he asks is how long Mobius had been there, because this is tied in how much knowledge he could have.
In fact, the more he’d been there, the more he might know.
Mobius though remarks since time passes differently at the TVA he has no idea… which is a convenient reply as it only confuses Loki and explains nothing. In fact he could have said not the exact time he’d been there but give an approximation like ‘a lot’ or ‘very little’, instead, by giving out a vague reply he gives Loki an info he could do nothing with (time passes differently) and no real info about himself. At the same time, by giving out an answer, he again seems amicable, like how, when Loki asks what his answer means, he says Loki will catch up, as if he’s not withholding information, it’s just ‘complicate’.
Loki resorts to check the information Miss Minute gave him in her cartoon, which Mobius confirms because he has nothing to lose.
Loki laughs and tries to spark a response by being rude in defining the TVA system.
“The idea that your little club decides the fate of trillions of people across all of existence at the behest of three space lizards, yes, it's funny. It's absurd.”
Note, ‘little club’, ‘three space lizards’, ‘funny’, ‘absurd’.
He’s mocking the system, likely in order to get a response, but also in order to gain some measure of control.
It’s something he has done during the trial and is something he did in “Thor: The Dark World” facing Odin… or in “The Avengers” when he was held captive. But in “The Avengers” and “Thor: The Dark World” he had some understanding of what to expect. Here he’s blind flying, trying to test Mobius to see what he can get out of him while still trying to hold a façade of control.
On another note Loki says rather often how all this is absurd. To him this is a world of nonsense, like the one Alice found when she ended up in Wonderland (and it’s ironic how “Alice in the Wonderland” also contain a mock trial about the stealing of tarts in which rules are made on the spot as well as Alice here and there questioning her own identity or discussions about paths…) but I think having him repeat ‘it’s absurd’ so often it’s also for us viewers, to drive home we’re in a dystopic universe.
The TVA isn’t good, it’s absurd, with its rules that don’t make sense, a huge bureaucratic world and we might laugh at it if it wasn’t that’s also an organization that kidnap people from their timelines and subject them to their rules, rules they follow without questioning, like religious fanatics.
Who says what the Time-Keepers chose it has to happen is better than something else? They don’t know but, what’s more, they don’t care.
But let’s go on.
Mobius don’t fall for Loki’s provocation, he just retorts
“I thought you didn't like to talk.”
Which is a convenient way to answer Loki without giving Loki any answer.
They enter in a room which, Loki comments, looks very much ‘like a killing-me kind of a room’.
Mobius turns the situation by shifting the blame on Loki. It’s not that the room looks like a killing-him kind of room, it’s just that Loki is not big on trust. Because Mobius is totally deserving Loki’s trust because he saved him and was nice to him and acted like the perfect good cop so Loki really, should trust him. If he’s not doing it then it’s because he’s lacking in the trusting department.
But Loki had had his fill with trusting people and then discovering he wasn’t his parents’ son nor an Asgardian. His answer his moved by all the pain that discovery caused him.
“Trust is for children and dogs. There's only one person you can trust.”
Mobius’ reply again doesn’t take Loki’s words seriously, as if they were just something to slap on a shirt. He’s being passive aggressive in order to force Loki to question himself and keep control of him. The more Loki is unsure and question himself, the easy for Mobius is to manipulate him.
A break here.
It’s not that everyone has only one person they can trust… actually sometimes you can’t even trust yourself, while some other times you’ve plenty of people you can trust.
The idea you CAN’T trust in anyone is as damaging as the idea you should blindly trust in people but, in Loki’s situation yes, he should definitely only trust in himself, everyone in that situation should do it, trauma of being lied through your whole life or not, because Mobius isn’t doing all his out of good will but out of his need to use Loki.
So he’s not to be blindly trusted, he’s to be assessed so that one can see up until which point Mobius can be of some aid, so as to turn the exchange one of reciprocal benefit. If Loki were to hand himself in his hands, instead, only Mobius would get a gain for it, while Loki would risk to be used and then disposed once he has ended his purpose.
As Mobius is fiddling with a round thing that apparently control a projector, Loki questions him again, but with those words he has raised the bar a little.
If Mobius wants him to trust him, he has to start giving more clear answers.
“If the TVA truly oversees all of time, how have I never heard of you until now?”
Mobius is still good at diverting the attention as his reply irritates Loki and causes him to lose track of the conversation.
Mobius: 'Cause you've never needed to. You've always lived within your set path.
Loki: I live within whatever path I choose.
Mobius: Sure you do.
There are two things from the exchange.
One is that Mobius ends up confirming that the TVA is sort of a secret organization that decides for others, that’s ABOVE OTHERS. They don’t let you know which rules you’ve to follow, they decide which rule you’ve to follow and then let you blind fly until you stumble into a rule you didn’t know exist and break it. And then they come to punish you. And that’s when you learn they existed.
The second is that again Mobius, while not openly disagree with him, is dismissive of Loki. He has made him defensive by pushing him to say ‘I live within whatever path I choose’ then he hadn’t outright said ‘no, you don’t’ but by the way he replied he hugely implied it in a manner that sounds more like he had said ‘oh, you naïve child, and your delusions, of course you don’t chose your path’.
As Mobius invites him to sit down Loki tries to attack him since Mobius gave him his back but Mobius uses what we’ll learn is a Time Twister to loops him and send him standing back where he was. Then Mobius very calmly insists for Loki to have a seat, again driving home the point that Loki has no choices and is powerless.
Loki complies and sit down.
We can argue if he should have or not but the truth is there was no real point in resisting beyond making things difficult for himself because if there’s something true here is that he’s powerless and he should just bid his time and search for a weakness, instead than resisting.
Of course this is all well and good for Mobius, as things are proceeding in the way he wants.
Loki crosses his arms, which, in body language, hints that he’s feeling anxious, resistant, tense, insecure, afraid, or responding to distress. Arms crossed indicate also defensiveness, unyielding attitudes, and perseverance working as an act of self-comfort.
Long story short, Loki is not comfortable or willing to cooperate and he’s physically putting a barrier between himself and Mobius… and letting Mobius know of this.
Mobius is unfazed.
“If looks could kill.”
It’s a simple sentence that let Loki know that yes, he gets the message Loki isn’t going to go down to this willingly, but also reminds him of Loki’s powerlessness and of how Mobius is unafraid and in a position of power. ‘If looks could kill… you would kill me, but looks can’t kill so you’ll have to sit there and do as I say. Your resistance is futile. Amusing even.’
Loki doesn’t play along, making clear he doesn’t plan to cooperate. At least not easily. Mobius doesn’t believe him.
“Really? Even when you're wooing someone powerful you intend to betray? Come on.”
It’s an interesting sentence for Mobius to say, because he’s lampshading Loki isn’t using with him the same technique he used with Thanos and the Grandmaster. Since the story knows Loki should act more cooperative and obedient according to his previous records, I wonder which point they’re trying to make. Is the idea that Loki started to act as such after his one year imprisonment in Asgard, understanding opening defiling Odin got him nowhere and that he should have instead played along, therefore this Loki hadn’t gotten to that point yet?
Or is the idea Loki is deliberately choosing to act like this because he has already figured playing along with Mobius wouldn’t work?
We’ll see.
The answer could as well be a Doylist one, the audience expects him to act a certain way, the author is aware Loki normally acted in a certain way but they wanted him to act differently for… reasons.
We’ll see.
Mobius continues to make a show of his power. He is specialized in the pursuit of dangerous Variants but not like Loki, Loki is just a pussycat… only it’s EXACTLY like Loki… as it’s Loki he’s pursuing. Another version of him. He’s not telling him that though, exactly because the whole point of the discussion is making Loki feel small so that he can control him.
Credits when it’s due, Mobius is playing a dangerous game because the Loki he’s pursuit and this one might be two different Variants but they’re always Loki and this one has all the potential to become the same as the other, if he’s not already and just keeping it buried inside himself.
Anyway, the fact that Loki is so contrary, forces Mobius to act as if he were willing to make Loki some concessions for his cooperation. A reward for good behaviour if so we can call it.
“You answer them honestly, and then maybe I can give you something you want. You wanna get out of here, right?”
The truth is I genuinely doubt Mobius can grant him that, or, at least, not that in the way Loki might intend it. The TVA erased the timeline he came from. He has no more a place outside of the TVA. The most ‘getting out of there’ could mean is what will later happen, make him a worker for the TVA. He won’t be allowed to go back home, he’ll just have to serve them in exchange for having them not delete him.
Mobius though shifts cards and pretends it means he can go back to where he was, asking him what he would do, should he return.
I particularly enjoy this dialogue.
Mobius: You wanna be king?
Loki: I don't want to be, I was born to be.
Mobius: I know, but king of what exactly?
Loki: ( Scoffs ) You wouldn't understand.
Mobius: Try me.
Loki: Midgard.
The ‘I don’t want to be’ echoes what Loki said to Thor in “Thor”…
“I never wanted the throne! I only ever wanted to be your equal.”
…and ties in with what Odin told him as a child…
“Only one of you can ascend to the throne. But both of you were born to be kings.”
Which is something Loki hints at in “Thor: The Dark World” as well.
Frigga: You know full well it was your actions that brought you here.
Loki: My actions. I was merely giving truth to the lie that I had been fed my entire life, that I was born to be a king.
“The Avengers” suffers of a huge plot problem in this regard, which is the jump between Loki in “Thor” and Loki in “The Avengers”. In the year that went between the two Loki is deeply changed but “The Avengers” refused to explain why, it just shows us a different Loki.
To search for an explanation we’ve to read interviews:
“And in the time between the end of Thor and the beginning of the Avengers, Loki has explored the shadowy highways and byways of the universe – and he’s met some terrible, terrible people and probably had some awful experiences, which he has survived and overcome. So by the time he arrives in The Avengers, he knows the extent of his power – and he’s unafraid to use it. And more importantly, he’s unafraid to enjoy it.” In Marvel’s The Avengers, Loki sets out to remake Earth as his personal kingdom. “That’s his motivation. Thor has his own kingdom in Asgard. Why shouldn’t Loki have his own? As Loki sees it, planet Earth is a world at war with itself. All of these races and tribes are fighting each other. And if they were united in the reverence of one king, there would be peace. It’s not that he plans to attack Earth. It’s that he plans to ‘restructure’ it as a new kingdom of which he will be the head. Loki feels that it’s his birthright. He feels that he was born to rule. And he sees the human race as an incredibly weak people who actually were made to be ruled. And, in his mind and in his opinion, the human race functions better under rule.” [The art of The Avengers]
“I think he went, like with everything else, to—Joss Whedon and I discussed it—to a sort of… it was just, like, the worst place imaginable. I think he went to, sort of, all of the darkest recesses of the universe. I’m sure he had a brush with—several brushes with death. I think he ran into the shadiest characters you can find in the Nine Realms. I think he had to rely on his wits to protect himself. It was really, really, really unpleasant, I think. I don’t have any frame of reference for that, except for imagining what it might be like to be kidnapped by a terrorist or something and have to survive a very, very frightening and precarious existence. But whatever it was, it was important when Loki came back for The Avengers, that whatever compassion he had left was absolutely shriveled to a minimum because of the experience that he had. Harrowing, I think, and scarring for life—in a way that Thor and Odin and Frigga find very, very difficult to understand.” [Tom Hiddleston - live on stage Q&A: Popcorn Taxi - part 2]
And in the end we stumble into this:
“Well, I can’t tell you exactly what went on because it’s this dark, dark secret that I didn’t make up yet. But, the other day, I had trouble with that because he had this very passionate Shakespearean tragedy thing going on in Thor and then I needed a villain who’s not only capable, but ready and willing and anxious to take on all these heroes. For me, he just basically went on some horrible walkabout… That was pretty much as far as I got.” [Joss Whedon told Comic-Con the question he doesn’t want us to ask ever again ]
So fundamentally “The Avengers” didn’t know what happened to Loki that changed him, they just went with the idea something bad happened, which of course should have happened since Loki met up with Thanos, who’s famous for torturing his daughters. They also tossed in that while on Midgard he was under the influence of the Mind stone.
“Gifted with a Scepter that acted as a mind control device, Loki would be able to influence others. Unbeknownst to him, the Scepter was also influencing him, fuelling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth.” [www.marvel.com/characters/loki/on-screen]
Ultimately though, what happened is never stated nor explained.
When Loki wants Asgard’s throne it’s clear he’s doing so because he associates it with his father’s love. Who gets the throne is the son Odin’s love.
“To prove to Father that I am the worthy son. When he wakes, I will have saved his life. I will have destroyed that race of monsters. And I will be true heir to the throne!”
But Midgard? Midgard is chosen by Thanos, because he needs the Tesseract, which is there. Did Loki wanted it too? Or was it Thanos who chose for him? Hard to say but “The Avengers” still ties Loki’s wish for a kingdom to his father.
THE OTHER: You question us? You question him? He who put the scepter in your hand, who gave you ancient knowledge and new purpose when you were cast out, defeated?
LOKI: I was a king! The rightful kind of Asgard! Betrayed!
THE OTHER: Your ambition is little, born of childish need. We look beyond the Earth to greater worlds the Tesseract will unveil.
It makes sense. When Loki is told his whole life is a lie, his first action is try to erase the truth by erasing Jotunheim. That was as much personal as practical (they were at war with Jotunheim). Becoming a king might have been another attempt at still erasing the truth. He doesn’t attempt to become king of Jotunheim, as it would be his birthright, but of something else, Midgard. He’s imitating Odin.
Loki: I went down to Midgard to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent god. Just like you.
All this to say that Loki’s reply ‘I don't want to be, I was born to be’ is actually a lot more layered that it sounds is actually a lot more layered that it sounds and that’s why he doesn’t think Mobius would understand it and gives him a simple answer, something he thinks he could understand. A location over which he could rule.
At the same time the irony of the situation isn’t lost on me. A moment ago Loki said he ‘live within whatever path he chooses’ yet he claims he was born to do something. This wasn’t a choice, this was predetermination. Or letting Odin dictate his path.
Anyway Loki claims he would then move to conquer Asgard and the Nine Realms and agree when Mobius suggests him to go for the space… and honestly I think here Loki is just playing a part. He’s giving Mobius the answers he thinks Mobius wants, an evil Loki. “Loki” clearly is not going to retcon “Thor: Ragnarok” and we’ve seen that in that movie once Loki had the throne of Asgard he didn’t start a conquering rampage but just contented himself with it.
So, no, Loki doesn’t want to rule the universe, he just wants to prove himself something he was told was true.
Mobius don’t take him seriously, either because he knows Loki doesn’t aim to universe domination or because this is convenient for him. He says something interesting though, albeit misleading.
Loki: Mock me if you dare.
Mobius: No, I'm not. Honestly, I'm actually a fan. Yeah. And I guess I'm wondering why does someone with so much range just wanna rule?
With ‘I’m actually a fan’ I don’t think he means he supports Loki, I think he’s subtly hinting he’s very interested in Loki. The other Loki, the Variant he’s trying to catch and that holds them all in a stalemate. Kind of like Sherlock Holmes might have appreciated Professor Moriarty’s intellect. This Loki and his other Variant might have a shared past… which makes this Loki interesting as well.
Then Mobius lead Loki in a loop in Loki’s reasoning. Loki is big on how he decides what he does. He values his own freedom. A huge part of why he reject the TVA system is because they want to dictate what he can and can’t do.
Yet in “The Avengers” he said:
Loki: I come with glad tidings, of a world made free.
Fury: Free from what?
Loki: Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart...[Like a gunslinger, Loki turns to face Selvig who's standing behind him and places his spear against Selvig's heart. Selvig's eyes glow black.]
Loki: You will know peace.
and
Loki: Kneel before me. [The crowd ignores him. Three more Loki's appear, surrounding and blocking the crowd from escaping.] I said KNEEL! [While the crowd quietly kneels, Loki embraces out his arms with a wide smile] Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.
It’s unclear how Loki came up with those ideas, albeit the fact he came from Asgard, which is a place where Odin rules as a supreme ruler and humans are viewed as inferior…
Odin: She does not belong here in Asgard anymore than a goat belongs at a banquet table.
…this might be another result of Odin’s awesome parenting, and not necessarily the result of Thanos’ manipulation… though the two might have superimposed so that it’s hard to say where one stop and the other begins.
Loki confirms this view here as well.
Loki: I would've made it easy for them.
Mobius: People like easy.
Loki: The first and most oppressive lie ever uttered was the song of freedom.
Mobius: How's that one go?
Loki: For nearly every living thing, choice breeds shame and uncertainty and regret. There's a fork in every road, yet the wrong path always taken.
On a personal note I think Loki wants to see himself above of this, but it’s clear that he too had to deal with choices that breed shame, uncertainty and regret, never mentioning he believes he was seen as inferior by Odin and deprived of his path.
Loki: So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me.
The fact he thinks Odin would have never put on the throne of Asgard a Frost Giant (a monster and therefore even more inferior in the Asgardians’ opinion than humans) no matter what and that he thinks this got confirmed when Odin told him he couldn’t do it, which pushed him to let go of Gungnir.
Loki wants to be above… he wants to be the master of his fate after instead he was forced to dance on other people’s strings (Odin, Thanos) but deep down he’s drawing from his own experience the downsides of freedom. He just wants to overcome them.
Mobius then says he’ll show Loki a sampling of Loki’s greatest hits… which are basically the end of the battle of New York.
It’s fundamentally a close up of how he was beaten and how he asked for a drink, which Mobius mocks further offering him a drink, which Loki refuses pointing out he remembers that scene.
We kind of stumble in a problem the series has. Mobius says:
“It's funny, for someone born to rule, you sure do lose a lot. You might even say it's in your nature.”
The problem here is that the sentence is misleading. Loki at the moment has two big failures on his shoulders, the one in “Thor” and the one in “The Avengers”. It doesn’t make a lot and note that in “The Avengers” he also had minor successes. He walked away from SHIELD’s facility with the Tesseract, he managed to have Clint Barton steal the Iridium, he let the Avengers capture him so that he could let the Hulk lose, which worked and he could recover the scepter and escape, he managed to open the portal and let the Chitauri in. Basically, since he let himself be captured and even Steve knows, Loki won all the battles except the one who decided the war. Which yes, was a big loss because it was the one that mattered the most but still it shows Loki’s losing record isn’t as big as Mobius makes it look like.
Loki ends up bringing up Coulson. To prove his point that Loki isn’t really good at winning Mobius could bring up the fact that Coulson was resurrected in “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” but no, he prefers to say the Avengers came together to literally avenge him by defeating him.
Now yes, Coulson’s death played a big part in all that, they felt guilty and sorry for him, as they all were tied to him one way or the other and this made what Loki did personal enough they could easily put away their differences… but I’m not overly fond of this theory because it implies if Coulson hadn’t died the Avengers would have never came together, would have never overcome their difficulties and would have lost.
Which, I guess, might be a possibility “Loki” might want to explore, we saw in a trailer an image of New York completely destroyed… but it’s something I don’t particularly like because it paints the Avengers in a pretty dark light.
If they didn’t have a common grief, they would have never cooperate for the common good.
Of course it’s not that Mobius care, this explanation is convenient for him, an Augustinian view of evil in which evil collapse its evil’s own doing. Because Loki killed Coulson, Loki set up his own defeat. Evil loses because it’s a snake that bites its own tail… which is an interesting view, really, but, in this case, it put a huge shadow on the Avengers.
Whatever, let’s go on, Mobius’ point is to make Loki feel small, not to explain him why he lost.
But still… he would manage to make a better point if the series weren’t forced to use only the footage from the movies. But well, I guess they had no other choice.
I enjoy the next bit of discussion. Mobius asks Loki:
“Do you enjoy hurting people? Making them feel small? Making them feel afraid?”
Which is exactly what he’s doing to him. There’s a huge irony in the whole discussion. They both think they’re in the right doing what they’re doing/what they did and that this excuses their actions.
They set up a moral motive, Loki sees himself as a liberator, Mobius sees himself as the saviour of the sacred timeline so they are above others, they came make them feel small and afraid and don’t have to feel guilty for it.
They get to a stalemate, although Loki isn’t looking at the screen, which is our clue he isn’t enjoying what he’s seeing, the people suffering. He didn’t like to look at them in “The Avengers” either, not looking when he ‘freed that eyeball’ as Mobius put in. Even when Thor forces him to look at the attacked city he shows he’s distressed. Loki however enjoyed being at the centre of the attention, it’s that what got him to smile, not hurting that man.
But whatever, to try to compensate, the series shows us some unseen material from Loki’s past, namely when he played the role of D.B. Cooper.
On a sidenote this hugely confirms my theory Loki used to hang out on Earth since he could play that part. Among the other things which the series didn’t show Cooper appeared familiar with the local terrain; at one point he remarked, "Looks like Tacoma down there," as the aircraft flew above it. He also correctly mentioned that McChord Air Force Base was only a 20-minute drive (at that time) from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. He asks for 2 bourbon and soda, paid his drink tab (and attempted to give flight attendant Tina Mucklow the change). He even offered to request meals for the flight crew during the stop in Seattle This makes Loki someone who knows very well how things work in Midgard… contrary to Thor.
Mobius introduces the whole thing saying
“You're really good at doing awful things, and then just getting away.”
And yes, it was awful. Although Cooper is described as extremely polite I can’t imagine that the crew who knew he had a bomb onboard felt comfortable with dealing with that situation. The worst part though is that he did it because he lost a bet with Thor.
Now they don’t exactly dig in what the bet was, but Heimdall was likely watching his every move and Thor asking him to do something similar as penance for losing a bet paints Thor also as pretty awful.
The best part though is that Loki excuses it by saying ‘he was young’. The whole thing took place in 1971, in short, 41 years before “The Avengers”. 41 years are a lot for a human, enough to make them say ’41 years ago I was young’, but Loki is at least 1047 in “The Avengers”. We don’t know how fast exactly Frost Giants and Asgardians age but, unless they do an abrupt jump, if Loki was young 41 years ago, he probably still is, which would match with the fan theory he’s actually around 17 in human years.
Now we can take Loki’s sentence as something a young person would say, as in a span of a short time they effectively grow and change a lot so their slightly younger self might feel a lot younger to them, or he might be talking in a more metaphorical sense.
Discovering the truth about himself and what followed forced him to grow faster. Now he wouldn’t do such immature things… which is a rather sad though.
At Loki’s request of where was the TVA back then, Mobius replies they were right there with him, just surfing that Sacred Timeline. Loki asks then if that has the Time-Keepers' seal of approval.
He scores one on this one as Mobius can’t reply, he just says not to think in terms of approval or disapproval.
Let’s remember something else that had the Time-Keepers' seal of approval was Thanos wiping away half of the universe but not just that. There’s also Thanos travelling through time to get to that future and stop “The Avengers” from undoing what he did with the infinity stones, which means they approved Tony Stark’s death in order to stop him.
Awesome people, don’t you think? More similar to writers who’ve to sell a good story than to people who care and wants to protect the people who lives in the timeline.
Anyway Mobius says they’ll go back to Loki’s escape and to a little psychobabble, which tells us not even Mobius sees this as a psychology session or therapy or whatever you want to call it. This interrogatory’s aim isn’t to let him know Loki better, he believes he knows him already. He’s trying to shape Loki into a willing collaborator because that’s his goal, not heal Loki or whatever.
Mind you, I think he’d like to get to know Loki in the sense he’s trying to catch a Loki and knowing Loki better might help him in his work… but so far he really hadn’t asked anything he didn’t know already so no, this isn’t a big ‘let’s get to know Loki’, though he might find some interest in seeing what makes him tick in the conversation, this is just a ‘let’s manipulate Loki into cooperating’.
Loki wants to stand, Mobius uses the Time Twister to loops him ‘back in his cage’. Because don’t mistake the situation just because he’s not being aggressive or physically abusive, Loki is in a cage and Mobius makes a show of showing it to Loki. He can’t stand up without Mobius’ permission and Mobius further remarks it by saying he ‘can play the heavy keys, too’, in short that he can play the role of the ‘bad cop’ that slams back the prisoner in his chair when he tries to move.
Or should we assume Mobius feared Loki was going to attack him?
Maybe, as I said Loki and Mobius might be more similar than it looks like, both acting in control and high and mighty to hide they are actually in a tight spot. Mobius isn’t a hunter, he might not be strong, he might not know how to fight beyond waving that Time Twister and the TVA wand, while Loki knows. We don’t know from which race Mobius is, but Asgardians and Frost Giants are naturally very physically strong, much stronger than humans, and Mobius might belong to a race that’s just not the same.
But still the scene works conveniently for Mobius, because it’s another chance to drive home how he completely control Loki.
Loki’s reply, regardless of it being sincere or not, is good because it says Mobius just overreacted as Loki merely wanted to make a point.
After an exchange in which Mobius gives him permission to stand and Loki remarks he’ll do what he wants, which in a way he did since ultimately he stood, he asks him what he wants.
Mobius says
“I want you to be honest about why you do what you do.”
Loki calls it a lie and he’s probably not completely right but neither completely wrong. Mobius likely doesn’t care about why Loki did what he did in the past, that’s not a time he has to deal with, but he cares about forcing Loki to be honest. Loki has to trust him and cooperate with him and this includes that he has to open up. Mobius has to already know the answer to his questions, otherwise he could never know if Loki is being honest and he knows them because he knows Loki’s future, how he evolves, how it pained him to see Frigga die, how he saved Thor even though it lead him to be stabbed, how he didn’t aim for space domination when he was king of Asgard, how he came back to save Asgard, how he died for his brother.
So Mobius is not lying when he says he wants Loki to be honest… but that’s not because he cares about the answer, which is what Loki figured and why Loki called him a liar. It’s a matter of control and Loki can see it.
Loki: I know what this place is.
Mobius: What is it?
Loki: It's an illusion. It's a cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. A desperate attempt at control. Now, you all parade about as if you're the divine arbiters of power in the universe.
And Mobius claims to be sure to have such a role which again, it’s an awesome irony because they both play the same game, they act as if they’re superior than others.
Mobius shows him his speech about freedom, which of course feels like a slap on his face because now it’s turned against him and his mad scramble for power.
Loki catches up and insists on his freedom, on how he’s the one in charge of his destiny who will win because HE did it, not because it was supposed to happen or was allowed by the TVA.
Mobius tries to bring him down again informing him if he hadn’t picked up the Tesseract he would have been taken to a cell on Asgard… or, you know, he might have been out there killing TVA men staging the 7th attack in the last week that they know of. But let’s not tell this to Loki at this stage. It might give him ideas about not being completely powerless against the TVA.
Mobius shows him the scene of his return to Asgard, which Loki rejects as a trick as ‘it never happened’.
Mobius agrees, it didn’t happen TO HIM, but it would have because they know also how his future was meant to be and that he should think of it as ‘comforting’. Which is not considering how his life was meant to be.
Note how Mobius is showing him only Frigga. How she was there for him when he came back, how she asked him if she wasn’t his mother and how he rejected her, hurting her. Loki doesn’t know what the argument was about or what pushed him to say so, all he sees is her being there for him and him hurting her and as he watches he moves closer.
Then Mobius explains how Loki believed to send the dark elves to Thor and instead sent them to Frigga… only he’s conveniently overlooking Loki had no idea they were Dark Elves or that there was a Dark Elves attack. Loki assumed the Kurse was just another Marauder arrested by Thor.
The Marauders were a collective of loosely affiliated alien pirates composed of many different races. When the Kurse is captured no Asgardian figured out what he is, they’re all persuaded the Dark Elves are dead, exterminated by Bor. For all Loki’s know this is a prison uprising, the Dark Elves’ ships hadn’t even appeared yet and started their attack when Loki sent Kurse on his way.
Mobius is cherry picking facts so as to shape them the way he wants.
Loki is shocked at seeing Frigga’s death which Mobius knew would have happened because he knew how he reacted when this happened.
He tries to rationalize what he saw by thinking they captured Frigga and forced her to play that part, while Mobius insists that’s the proper flow of time and that’s what has to happen because it has to and the TVA makes sure of it. However, although the TVA ensures Frigga’s death, he tries to make it all Loki’s fault. He caused it, and now Mobius wants to know if he enjoys hurting people, as if he could not know how devastated Loki was when Frigga died. He asks him if he enjoys killing people like he did with his mother.
He knows the past time Loki felt completely responsible for it, he’s trying to get him to feel the same even if Loki actually never meant to kill Frigga.
On a sidenote, he’s trying to send him on a vulnerable loop to get his collaboration like Thor did that time… but it’s a dumb move. Let’s assume Loki swallows they could send him back to his time and accepts to submit to being jailed. The TVA would still ensure he would direct the Kurse to Frigga so that she’ll die because this is the proper flow of time for them.
Although I doubt he meant it, Mobius actually isn’t giving Loki reasons to cooperate with him permanently, just to think harder to a way to avoid that future.
I don’t really know what Mobius is thinking but he seems so sure that he can come out as so overly powerful and righteous he can both bend Loki to his will by saying he’s to blame for Frigga’s death and, at the same time, that he should do nothing to prevent it.
Anyway at this point Loki attack him and is looped again. He ends on the ground with Mobius apologizing, BEFORE PUTTING THE TIME TWISTER IN HIS POCKET, saying it because the Time Twister just loops him, not the furniture… but he actually meant it, because Loki had been standing by a while and he could have looped him to just standing there.
Mobius goes on trying to make him again feel even more smaller.
“You weren't born to be king, Loki. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death. That's how it is, that's how it was, that's how it will be. All so that others can achieve their best versions of themselves.”
In short he was born to be used by the sacred timeline to create heroes. But it’s a ridicule argument, in itself, because every living being create pain and suffering in his life, albeit sometimes in smaller measure than Loki or for better reasons. And the idea that people become better only through pain and suffering and death… is scary because somehow it legitimize it. It makes right to kill Coulson because then the Avengers can be born. It makes right for Thanos to wipe away half of humanity because so the Avengers joined forces again.
It’s a damaging and wrong mindset… that Mobius is of course pushing forward because that’s the narrative the TVA spins. They don’t save people, they just decide who lives and die according to their taste… which works if you’re a storywriter but it’s awful if you’re talking of real people.
Loki calms down and asks again what is that place. Mobius offers him his hand in a classic stick and carrot game. He wants Loki to obey. Loki complies and they’re interrupted by Hunter B-15. Mobius is forced to leave with her but not before telling Loki:
“Don't go anywhere. It was just getting good. Spirited.”
In short he was enjoying making Loki feel miserable, which I don’t think he does because he’s a jerk but just because that’s his job. Like Hunter B-15, they’re very motivated in doing their job to the point they don’t realize the other isn’t just ‘a variant’ but a person with feeling. They think they’re doing the people a service by murdering the extra.
Kind of like how Thanos saw himself as noble when he murdered half of the people in the universe to save the other half and expected people to feel grateful to him.
By the way, do you think that Loki is complying too easily?
Not really, do check the way he let Mobius pull him up and how he then moves his left hand for a moment inside his pocket to pull it out immediately afterward. We’ll come back to it in a moment. For now let’s follow the plot that has Hunter B-15 claiming that talking ‘to that Variant’ is a mistake as he should just be reset, read, if Mobius had been honest, killed.
For Hunter B-15 Loki is not a person, he’s just a Variant, a Variant to destroy. Actually it’s not even because the other Loki Variant is killing their units, because Mobius says she thinks all the Variants should be reset.
And remember about how Loki could be in a jail or plotting the 7th attack in the last week that they know of? Well, that’s just what the other Loki variant did as they just lost another unit.
I know I should be cheering for this Loki but I’m also really cheering for that other Loki variant. Go burn the TVA to the ground.
Mobius goes back to Loki and… discovers he disappeared. Because when Loki let Mobius pull him up he caught his chance to stuff his hand in Mobius’ pocket, steal the Time Twister and put it in his own pocket. That’s what Loki was thinking when he calmed down, a plan to get out of there, a chance to take the Time Twister.
Now… don’t the TVA know in advance what happens in the TVA? What the Variants would do once they’re captive? Because Mobius seems genuinely surprised and they’ve to search for Loki so for all their bragging about knowing everything and controlling everything maybe they actually don’t. They can’t control the Variants, which is why the other Loki Variant can attack without them knowing in advance. Their sacred timeline doesn’t cover it so they’re blind to it.
Of course it’s possible he let Loki take it on purpose but I want to think against it.
We see that Loki has looped himself in an early point of his entrance in the TVA and has noticed Casey, the guy at the desk who has taken the Tesseract. He follows him, clearly planning to get the Tesseract back and, with it, to leave the place.
Mobius and Hunter B-15 search for Loki, giving each other the blame for his disappearance. Hunter B-15 would like to catch this chance to dispose of Loki but Mobius rejects the idea since he believes he can still help.
Loki tracks Casey down. Casey recognizes him and he forces him to kneel behind the desk. He asks him his name and once he has it he tells him in his most threatening tone to give him the Tesseract or he’ll gut him like a fish.
Only Casey wants to know what’s a fish because he wants to know what he’s being threatened with, before complying and he has spent all his life behind a desk so he has no idea what a fish is. I guess he also doesn’t know what it means gutting.
Loki can’t imagine not knowing what a fish is… which is kind of weird because he should know for example humans never head of bilchsnipes… but maybe due to his name he’s thinking Casey is human. Honestly the whole TVA staff seems human. Can I say I don’t like it?
In the comics though, the TVA staff was made by people cloned. They literally were made by the TVA. I wonder if this is Casey’s situation.
Anyway Loki clarifies he’s threatening him with death. It doesn’t unfazed Casey much (do people die INSIDE the TVA?) but, to Loki’s relief, he complies, opens his drawer and give him the Tesseract whose light is still mostly turned off. Loki feels a moment of relief before noticing that in the drawer there are assorted infinity stones.
At Loki’s confusing Casey explains they get a lot of those, enough to use them as paperweight. I guess the infinity stones influence might allow people to do different choices and become Variants as they can influence them.
Something inside the TVA though, turns off their power.
Loki is confused as he picks up a green one, which should be a time stone. We hear the sound of stones moving but we can’t see if he placed it back where it was.
Loki is utterly confused as he walks away with the Tesseract in a daze looking at the sacred timeline and wondering if the TVA is really the greatest power in the universe. Behind him, Casey nods.
The elevator opens, Hunter B-15 tries to hit Loki but Loki uses the Time Twister to disappear again so she misses him completely and almost hits poor Casey. Note that the blow would have been fatal for either Loki or Casey.
Hunter B-15 didn’t care of how Mobius said no pruning or resetting, we can see that the cart, which gets hit instead of Loki, disappear.
This time Hunter B-15 didn’t go for physical pain, she went for the kill.
Loki is back in the interrogation chamber where he put the Time Twister on the table and watches on the projector his future. First Frigga’s death, as if to try to accept it, and he’s almost in tears, then he lash forward to Odin telling him and Thor that he loves them and that they should remember that place. This too touches him emotionally. He sees Thor telling him how he thought the world of him and he sees them fighting side by side against Hela and then telling him maybe he’s not so bad. He smiles at seeing that, laughing sadly but then… he sees his death at the hands of Thanos. It’s obviously traumatic but, I hope, when he can think at all that in perspective, he’ll be able to see the truth.
He wasn’t born to cause pain and suffering and death. He also saved lives, his brother’s specifically but also the ones of some Asgardians.
And, at the same time, he could see, he could learn his father and brother did love him, or at least that was the intended message of those scenes (I won’t dig into them portraying it correctly or not).
The file about him ends.
Loki gives into a slightly hysterical chuckling and the door behind him opens. It’s Hunter B-15 who asks him what’s so funny.
Loki replies ‘Glorious purpose’ which can mean all and nothing. According to the file his glorious purpose wasn’t to become king, but not even to cause pain and suffering and death. At the same time it’s not a particularly uplifting message the one that file gave him. The moment he could start again with Thor, Thanos killed him. In the end, even if he tried to change, his life would be one of pain and suffering until his death.
Loki and Hunter B-15 fight and somehow she doesn’t have anymore her murdering wand nor the men following her.
She’s alone and disarmed but she’s clearly a trained to fight and rather strong. Loki is smarter though. As soon as she slams him on the table he grabs the Time Twister, unlatches his collar and wraps it around her neck. Then takes on her his revenge for having been looped way too many times that day by looping her a lot until he makes her disappear. Where to I’ve no idea but I hope for him far enough. He was clearly taking out on her all the abuse he suffered from her and Mobius. In the end he tosses the Time Twister again on the table.
Meanwhile Casey is retelling his misfortunate meeting… evidently finding the idea that Loki would turn him into a fish much worse than the idea Loki threatened to kill him and then complains about the hunters showing up and pruning his cart.
Really, it makes me wonder if the TVA doesn’t use the world ‘dead’ in conversation. It’s all ‘reset’ or ‘prune’. I’m not saying they don’t know of it, just that they don’t use it to define what they do because it would make them look bad. You murder a living being. You reset a timeline, prune a branch. There’s a psychological difference that allows them to see Variants not as living beings but as objects.
As he speaks Hunter B-15 appears in front of him so that’s where Loki sent her.
Meanwhile Loki has remained in the room in which he was. He seems worn out as he sat on the floor against a wall, his face in his hands and the Tesseract set next to him.
Mobius, who gets into the room holding one of those TVA wands, finds him like that. Mobius rubs in he has nowhere left to run.
Loki states how he can’t go back to his timeline, then decides to comply with Mobius previous request. He tells him he doesn’t enjoy hurting people, he does it because he has to, because it's part of the illusion. It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. And claims to be a villain.
Is he being sincere or just telling Mobius what he wants to hear?
I like to think he’s being both. In “The Mentalist” Patrick Jane once tried to teach Teresa Lisbon how to gain someone’s trust. His first suggestion was to ask that person for a favour, so that they would feel more powerful, when this didn’t work he told her to get that person to lower their guard she should lower her own. I get the feeling Loki is doing this. He’s lowering his guard, giving Mobius what he wants, so that Mobius will lower his guard too. Like when he accepted his hand only to steal the time twister.
There’s a power in being sincere as well, which is to make Mobius feel more powerful by giving him power and therefore push him to underestimate Loki.
Mobius, who previously told him
“You weren't born to be king, Loki. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death. That's how it is, that's how it was, that's how it will be. All so that others can achieve their best versions of themselves.”
Now saying him that’s not how he sees it.
He’s either giving him the carrot in his carrot and stick game or he’s just remarking one of the main characteristics of the TVA. The TVA is neutral, they don’t approve or disapprove actions, people has no choice, they’ve to follow a path and Loki’s path was to do what he did so that others could become better. The TVA doesn’t really seems to care of the moral axis of Loki’s alignment… or their own or everyone else, they only care of the ethical alignment.
Now, as I’ve seen fandom discuss this, in roleplays people created character alignments to give an ‘ideal’ for a character to live up.
This caused the birth of two Axis, the moral axis (Good, Neutral, and Evil) and the ethical axis (Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic).
The alignments of the moral axis are pretty easy to figure out, so I’m not even discuss them, but the one of the ethical axis are basically meant to tell if a character follows the law or not.
The TVA is clearly lawful aligned, they blindly follow their rules as if they were a dogma, a faith. Hydra is lawful. Steve Roger is lawful, as he wants to follow rules.
Loki in a good part of the movies doesn’t follow the rules, we saw it from the start, in “Thor” he decided to act to interrupt the coronation, which was against the rules of Asgard, and then he tricked Laufey, which is against the rules of war. In “The Avengers” he let himself be arrested so as to unleash the Hulk. In “Thor: The Dark World” he pretended to join forces with Malekith so that he would remove the Aether from Jane and then stole from Odin the throne… and so on. He’s not the only one though, Thor himself as moments in which he’s chaotic, like when he invades Jotunheim against his father’s order and how later will invade that SHIELD facility, or how he’s challenge his father again in “Thor: The Dark World”.
Actually all the Avengers here and there had been chaotic… and here and there had been lawful.
Loki’s situation places him more on the chaotic axis because he has no other master but himself. In short he doesn’t respect anyone else’s rules, sometimes not even his own as he claims Frigga isn’t his mother when he clearly feels she is and fights to avenge her… but he too had his own moments of being lawful.
That’s because people aren’t roleplay characters and they wouldn’t feel realistic if they were just sitting on one alignment.
But whatever, let’s go on.
Loki picks up the Tesseract, and Mobius asks him if he tried to use it.
“Oh, several times. Even an Infinity Stone is useless here. ( Scoffs ) The TVA is formidable.”
And here we’ve Loki trying on ‘wooing someone powerful he intend to betray’, to put it with Mobius’ words. I wonder if Mobius can realize it or he’s so sure in his idea he’s powerful he misses it.
Either way he has gotten what he wanted, Loki acting this way means he has acknowledged they’re powerful enough he has to play along with them.
Mobius tell him:
“I can't offer you salvation, but maybe I can offer you something better.”
And here I feel an echo of Thor in “Thor: The Dark World”:
“I did not come here to share our grief. Instead I offer you the chance of a far richer sacrament.”
I wonder if Mobius is trying to play that same game to get Loki to cooperate. Loki though has seen the video. Maybe he knows too. And well, at least Mobius came out more honest because he told him he can’t offer him salvation. Remember when he babbled about what Loki could do if he were to go back to his timeline? It was all a pourparler, words that weren’t meant to turn true as Loki is not meant to go back to his timeline. Ever.
That timeline doesn’t exist anymore it was reset.
But at this point Mobius has to be honest and give Loki something back, the reason why they’re interested in him… which is the dangerous Variant they’re hunting is HIM, or better another Variant of himself.
Meanwhile in Salina Oklahoma, 1858 Hunter U-92 and his men are checking on something. They find an object from the early third millennium but discover there’s oil on the ground and think it’s just someone who found himself a time machine and came back here to get rich. Hunter U-92 thinks he’s not worth the paperwork of searching for him and that they should just prune the timeline. Then they notice a figure in a black cape.
The figure has a oil lamp which they drop on the petrol covered ground. The fire spread to the Minuteman who start to die by arson. Hunter U-92 tries to crawl to the reset charge but someone grabs him and pulls him back. Then a hand, clearly not his own, picks up the resect charge.
And either this is the story sharing with us the 7th attack or the other Loki’s Variant has just managed to make the 8th attack in the last week that they know of. Really, I would say for the TVA it’s better to hope it’s not Monday.
As for me, I’m sorry for them but I hope it’s Monday there.
I’ve no sympathy for bureaucratic regimes who views people who don’t complain with their wishes as things… pardon, as Variant, and implement on them the “Final Solution” under the guise of pruning or resetting them.
This doesn’t mean everyone at the TVA is necessarily evil… but they’re dangerous, they’re fanatic who live in a regime that elect them at judges of other people’s lives. Judge Ravonna Renslayer dictates the proper flow of time according to the Time-Keepers dictations without bothering to question them, or the justice of it. At the TVA no one asks himself if it’s right or wrong, they just do it, they don’t know any other way to do it.
It’s not that they want to be evil, they actually want to be noble and just, they believe in the propaganda that’s all spread on the creepy posters around them and think they’re incredible, courageous and dedicated workers and don’t question their work or their lives at all.
They’re just many little Adolf Eichmann mostly bereft of initiative, cultural and moral depth; the latter did not go beyond the conditioning that had been given to them by society.
They lack empathy for what they destroy, for what they prune or reset and so they won’t stop thinking at what they’re doing.
Long story short, we should be grateful the TVA doesn’t exist because, really, that’s a creepy organization that pulls out the worst from people empowering them to murder others and telling them they’re doing something good.
Mobius, Casey, Hunter B-15 are brainwashed by the TVA worldview. It’ll be interesting to see if prolonged interaction with a Variant, Loki, might open his eyes or not. For now they’re like children who can’t distinguish good from bad because they buy a wrong narrative in which they’re above it.
I’m curious to see if they will ultimately eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of the good and the evil or if they’ll remain ignorant and dedicate executors of the TVA. We’ll see.
Well, this was long. Thank you to all the people who remained through this long, long episode study of mine. I can’t wait to see the next Loki episode!
#loki#loki odinson#loki laufeyson#mobius m mobius#thor#thor odinson#mcu the avengers#mcu loki#mcu thor#mcu thor ragnarok#mcu thor the dark world#mcu avengers endgame#mcu avengers infinity war#frigga#tony stark#clint barton#steve rogers#odin borson#9 worlds study#9 worlds study mcu loki
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Review for Trish’s Dream Fic
Trish ( @couragedontdesertme ) said she’d write an epilogue of the elsarik dream Fic if I made a Formal Review of the elsarik dream fic. So here we are.
Please note review should be taken VERY LIGHTLY this is more or less me re-reading the Fic and loudly yelling about things with too many exclamation points. Enjoy Trish.
Ch1
First of all imagine my fucking surprise I didn’t even know you had gotten work done on the dream fic???? Here I was thinking the link you sent me was the next chapter of city of ice and then I click on it and it saYS DREAM FIC???? E X C U S E M E oh my goodness
The first section is just so entirely domestic and beautiful and you can tell how lived in and content they are in their life as roommates. ALARIK (listen my phone autocorrects ALARIK to be in all caps and I’m too lazy to fix it so y’all are gonna have to deal with reading ALARIK’s name as if I’m yelling it every time I type it) anyway ALARIK just bringing her the chocolate croissants she loves so dearly and Elsa curling up with a book and him fretting and worrying over her being there alone all day and later... it’s just SO DOMESTIC. it’s such a small short moment but it’s so domestic and a perfect opposite of the PAIN THAT HAPPENS AFTER!!! And we al know I LOVE READING PAIN
The fact that ALARIK was only home late because he was doing tutoring to earn more money to by Elsa A PRESENT????? Shut up no one speak to me that’s true love but also PAINFUL the guilt he must feel oh my god
Elsa...stops struggling... because she doesn’t want ,,,, ALARIK ,,,, to get hurt. Because she cares for his safety more than her own because he has protected her and he is her friend and she loves him I am going to SCREAM
The fact that you use the phrase ~marching her out of the warmth of the room~ when she just used her magic to like cover the walls in frost makes my Heart burst cause idk if it was intentional or not but I just love the thought that this room has become Home to her it’s become safe and beautiful and lovely and WARM because it is full of love and friendship and companionship rather than the cold loneliness of say her ice palace of her locked room as a child. I like to think Elsa could have covered the room entirely in ice and snow and frost and it would still feel warm to her because of the love that’s developed there thank you for coming to my tedtalk
Ugh fuck hans
I have literally no words other than fuck hans for any section with hans in it I DONT even want to RECOGNIZE THAT HE EXISTS !!! Making Elsa feel like she’s nothing I am going to punch him in the eye
~ALARIK weeps over smushed chocolate croissant. End scene~
I know that it’s such a heartbreaking sad ending for that first chapter but also I really can’t stop laughing about him crying over a stepped on croissant since I know that your like planning note for that last scene was literally just some variant of ALARIK cried over a smushed croissant and that’s just such a funny IMAGE TO ME EVEN THOUGH ITS SAD
I just like to imagine ALARIK cradling the chocolate croissant in his arms like a bébé as he sobs
Ch2
I’m fucking S A D
ALARIK having like NO MONEY and just thinking about that the money he has was going to go to a gift for Elsa and the guard LAUGHING AT HIM LIKE THATS IT THATS ALL YOU HAVE?? Like shut UP HES TRYING TO SAVE HIS BELOVED
P e t t y c h a n g e HE IS TRYING MR GUARD I WILL HAVE YOU KNOW HE WORKED EXTRA TO GET THAT MONEY
ALARIK is so fucking DEVOTED I’m going to run through a goddamn wall I cannot cope. Willing to sell the clothes off his back have you ever seen an idiot more iN LOVE
ALARIK just going willingly cause he has no fight left in him and he just wants to see Elsa even if it means he gets imprisoned too oh my GOD
THE SCENE ITS THE SCENE!!!!!!!!!
STRAIGHT FROM TRISH’S SUBCONSCIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHAT STARTED IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!
ALARIK wanting to hold her hands when her hands are what are chained up and seen as dangerous and what ~make her a witch~ the absolute love and power that holds.
LET ALARIK AND ELSA HOLD HANDS
“I promised to keep you safe” the pain I feel oh mY GOD
“They’ll KILL you” they’re really out here trying to protect each other at all costs oh my god nothing matters more to the other than keeping the other safe and for that I want to cry and love them and also I want to ram their heads into the wall because wHY WONT THEY JUST PROTECT ESCH OTHER TOGETHER
The PARALLEL OH MY FUCKING GOD
the P A R A L L E L of ALARIK stilling and no longer struggling when the guards threaten Elsa’s death in the same way that Elsa stilled and stopped struggling when they threatened ALARIK’s death oh my god that broke me right there
U g h hans fuck that guy
A N N A !!!!!!!!
When I first read this,,, I DONT know why??? But for some reason??? I didn’t think Anna would be in it???? Which like thinking back on that it makes no sense of COURSE Anna would be in the FIC why would I ever think otherwise. But anyway I was so surprised when she showed up I literally gasped and went ANNA??? Out loud because I was so shocked
ALFAFA GERANIUM
ALARIK really is just so bad under pressure who thought this was a good idea
AG FOR SHORT wink wink nudge nudge cough cough
I’ll be thinking about ALARIK shouting alfafa geranium on my death bed let us never forget
“No harm, no foul” is literally the most fucking Anna line I’ve ever heard. She absolutely would say that to someone who was being question for a crime she’d be like “it’s not biggy”
Why is it that when hans says “BUT ANNA!!!” I hear it like he’s wining like a petulant child I read it like “bUT annNNAAAAA” ugh I hate him
“Don’t scream” *ALARIK’s inner monologue* “this ,, is the story of how I died”
ILL HELP YOU HELP HER ESCAPE!!!!! HELL YEA YOU WILL ANNA HELL YEA YOU WILL
Ch3
My dumbass really went “why are none of the children named neta” before remembering that is the child of Anna and Kristoff and these...are the children of Anna ,,, and .... ugh please don’t make me say his name
I would die for these kids though I love them and I want to protect them at all costs 
Johannes at 5 (and a half!!!!) being a fine soldier GOOD FOR HIM
Isak owns my entire heart from the moment he started fake crying for his mother what a star performer a true Actor he’s too good
Arendellian Royal Guards, are they guards? Or are they simply baby sitters? The world may never know
JOAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of the babies being named JOAN!!! Hang in there Joan!!!!!!!!! That made me cry oh my god J O A N
Bébé Isak lookout supreme with his big eyeballs and smile and goofy lil salute I love him
The fact that Elsa says she felt stupid for being lured into a false sense of security means she felt secure and safe for literally the first time since she was a child when she was with ALARIK and I cannot properly articulate how much that made me cry I love that so much that has to mean sO MUCH TO HER oh my god
“You have to get out!! Do the magic!!” NO ONE SPEAK TO ME ABOUT ANYTHING EXCEPT THIS LINE FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL MONTHS I LITERALLY WEPT
the use of DO THE MAGIC oh my god AND ELSAS HEART LIKE BREAKING BECAUSE SHE FEELS LIKE SHE CANT
DO ! THE ! MAGIC !
Brave little boy with his mother’s determination saying “be brave. That’s what mama said to tell you” oh my GOD THESE CHILDREN HAVE MY WHOLE HEART OH MY GOD
A rooster crow for the signal COUKD they be more obvious I love these kids they’re ridiculous they are truly the children of Anna
Elsa!!! Chose!! To be!!! Brave!!!
IF SHE TRIED TO SAY GOODBYE TO ELSA!!! SHE MAY NEVER LET GO!!!
SHE HAD NO WHERE TO GO!!! BUT SHE DOES BEVAUSE THERES ALARIK WAITING FOR HER BECAUSE GUESS WHAT
ALARIK IS HER HOME !!!!! HE IS HER HOME !!!! SHE CAN GO TO HIM!!!!
Queue another one of my shocked and delightfully surprised screams as I shouted KRISTOFF????? Because blonde dude driving a reindeer cart
Let’s get you somewhere safe I’m going to cry THEYRE finally together again and they can keep each other safe together as. They. Should.
They are cuddling and my heart is exploding oh my god ALARIK seems so surprised like you big dumb idiot you’re both in love with each other it’s a mutual thing get with the program
SLEEP ELSA! ITS GOING TO BE OKAY! AND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN PROBABLY FOREVER! IT WILL BE!
Ch4
*queue another gasp* there’s only one bed?????
Yea I saw it coming yea I was just as shocked even so yea I got very excited about it wHAT DID YOU EXPECT
They’re cUDDLING and he went to move away and she DOESNT WANT HIM TO they could’ve been sharing a bed THIS WHOLE TIME AND I JUST WANT TO SCREAM BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY
ALARIK laying all the credit on kristoff and the kids when he’s kind of the one that steamrolled the whole plan into happening because he’s the one who showed up ALARIK please give yourself more credit
“You came back” “of course I came back... I couldnt ...” “why?” And then ALARIK refusing to meet her eyes has me absolutely weeping this is the kind of shit I THRIVE ON this is truly a gift to us all everyone say thank you Trish for these three bits of dialogue I will be thinking about them for all my days
ELSA KISSED HIM!!!!!!!!!
Yeah I do lose my shit anytime Elsa is the one to make the first move you go girl you go
THE SPICE VENDOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bringing in all my favorites I am going to cry thank you Trish I love Darius
I SUPPOSE YOU TWO HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN MARRIED
listen I SCREAMED WHEN HE SAID THAT I SQUAWKED!!!! MARRIED!!!!!!
I had been observing you two and just assumed!!!!! You would assume right mr spice vendor sir if they WERENT so stupid for so long it’s okay we understand
WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE ??? And Elsa says MARRY US? And ALARIK is going to PASS THE FUCK OUT
He literally got to finally kiss the woman he’s in love with for the first time last night and now they’re getting married poor boy is going to get WHIPLASH from how fast things are progressing but it’s okay im sure he is happy
Elsa’s little vows of just needing each other and keeping each other safe and keeping company and not needing gold or silver ugh TRUE LOVE
And ALARIK hopelessly devoted to her being like I PROMISE
“just you being there no matter what is enough” peak romance true love the devotion the dedication I’m a wreck
LE SMOOCH! LE MARRIAGE! INCREDIBLE I LOVE THEM
~end review~
Okay where is my epilogue please and thank you
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December 27th, 2018 CTP Archive
The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on December 27th, 2018, from 5PM - 7PM PST. The chat focused on Inhibit by Eve Greenwood / evegwood.
Featured Comment:
Chat:
RebelVampire
COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB START!
Good evening, everyone~! This week’s Thursday Book Club is officially beginning! Today we are discussing Inhibit by Eve Greenwood / evegwood~! (http://www.inhibitcomic.com/)
Remember that Thursday discussions are completely freeform! However, every 30 minutes I will drop in OPTIONAL discussion questions in case you’d like a bit of a prompt. If you miss out on one of these prompts, you can find them pinned for the chat’s duration. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is fun and respectfully appreciating the comic. All that said, let’s begin!
QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?
there are many great scenes, but i am particularly fond of victor in the parking garage. specifically, i enjoy the unfolding of events once masha joins the party. i love the fact that victor freezes up and just flat out doesnt know what to do. not only does this fit with his character, but i actually think its refreshing for a protagonist with powers to still just be a regular person deep down who does not have the required training to deal with that sort of situation. not to mention i love seeing paulina's powers in action
spire
Agreed! The garage is one of my favorites too. I love how Paulina is breaking rules left and right- not just laws (lol) but all the concepts that have been established so far about how powers are supposed to work. I really want to figure out what's going on(edited)
RebelVampire
or is she breaking laws? as in the powers. obviously shes breaking the other sorts of laws like dont set ppls property on fire. but i will save theories on the powers for a bit later. i do enjoy that she throws a wrench already into what's established. tho i felt bad for victor that nobody is listening to him.
another scene ive been enjoying is the current flashback where victor is a bouncy child. mostly because i love how excited about everything victor is. like wanting explosions just cause its cool. and i think its just this real contrast that builds tension for the narrative since youre like "victor man what happened O_O"
spire
No one listened to him then and no one listens to him now. I would love it if someone took him seriously for once
I would also love it it someone let him REST
RebelVampire
yeah my heart really hurts for him. because ive been in that position of sitting there constantly trying to tell someone something and then being ignored.
although i really think ppl need to learn moderation in regards to their expectations for victor most of all
cause it seems like ppl either 1) expect nothing from victor and think hes a loser or 2) pull a nate and expect victor to auto be this extremely capable person despite not having trained for anything in years
Superjustinbros
*jumps in
Hello~!
RebelVampire
hey super!
Superjustinbros
Hey Rebel!
Pleased to be here~
spire
Hello~
Superjustinbros
And hello to you too, Spire!
RebelVampire
another scene that i enjoy was when julia, david, and victor snuck back in to the building to eavesdrop. on a technical level i liked the writing for it because it was a scene that moved the plot along but also served to show off the relationship dynamics that exist between those specific characters. so as a narrative construct everything in that scene felt like it had purpose to one end or the other.
Superjustinbros
I just want to say, the faces in this comic are incredible.
http://www.inhibitcomic.com/comics/2658763/chapter-5-pg-11/ Especially this one on the bottom right
And then they play bloody Laser Tag
RebelVampire
yeah the faces on the kid are really some fantastic exaggerations
Superjustinbros
Oh yes
RebelVampire
but suits them cause theyre kids
Superjustinbros
There's lots of fun to be had with giving characters over the top faces.
RebelVampire
QUESTION 2. Victor has been shown to be a drastically different person than he was in his youth. What is the past incident that several characters bring up that apparently resulted in a trial and inevitably got Victor kicked out of Urquhart? What does it have to do with Masha, and do you think Julia was involved somehow considering she’s also at Earl Estate? Is it the reason Nate and Victor’s relationship soured as well? Do you believe the incident is what changed Victor so much, or is it several aspects of his life? Do you think any of this has something to do with why Victor has failed to improve at Earl Estate? Also, why do you believe Victor’s inhibitors are now failing him so badly? Lastly, do you believe his missions with Nate will have an effect on Victor’s personality? How so?
Superjustinbros
tfw it's already time to answer question 2
I'll stop posting these to the chat now
RebelVampire
well considering adult victor has some issue controlling his powers when hes emotional, im gonna assume something of that nature happened. potentially maybe to that bully who keeps picking on young masha. cause i feel like victor is gonna stand up to them or attempt to and get mad and then accidentally severely injure them or something. idk about julia being involved
tho looking back it looks like she has all her fingers as a child
Superjustinbros
That seems like a very good interpretation.
Considering he does shoot out electricity at impractical times, at least from what I've seen(edited)
RebelVampire
as for nate and victor's relationship souring, i think theres more at work than just this incident. i kind of get the impression that nate just kind of likes taking things out on victor even when everything has nothing to do with victor. but i think basically all this crap combined to shake victor's confidence and that's a large reason hes not improving. cause he just has no reason to be confident anymore.
spire
I think Vic's self worth has been raised into a precarious position thanks to being a gifted (in this case- super powered) child, and with how much his spark-outs are emphasized through the whole comic, something terrible must have happened with a spark and that lack of control was touted against him, which makes it near impossible to repair his self esteem
RebelVampire
yes definitely all that. cause i feel by and large that victor has just given up on himself. which tbf i dont blame him cause literally nobody is doing anything to help really. like theres not a truly positive influence. although to nate's credit i guess he's trying? just ya know, in a super bad way
spire
Lol yeah. That's a good way to put it
Nate is helping but in the worst way. Vic needs some genuine, earnest support
As for Julia, I suspect she gave herself frostbite? Noor is very strict about Julia forming ice around her limbs, and she must have been moved to Earl for a similar outburst of her own powers
RebelVampire
tbh i think julia has more control of her powers. from the impression i get anyway. i kind of think julia is just reckless and doesnt think her actions through. though i mean might of been an outburst too. i could really go either way. and maybe its both.
though frostbite is way more tame than what i was thinking happened XD
i was picturing more encasing an ice and then shattering said ice
frostbite sounds more reasonable and less horrific
spire
Omg
Julia just thought one day that it would be cool to be a snowman
She didn't consider the fact that she can't move. Once she becomes the snow man ️
RebelVampire
that sounds like something shed do. even now cause i dont feel shes anymore responsible than she was as a kid
which ya know narratively speaking is kind of a good contrast with victor in a way
spire
Yeah
RebelVampire
cause victor has no control of his powers but has a sort of reserved control of himself. whereas julia has control of her powers but is an explosion of bad decisions waiting to happen
spire
I love that about them. Despite Julia's recklessness I think it's good for Vic to not be sitting alone in his room 24/7
RebelVampire
idk i agree and disagree. its good for him to get out and socialize, but im not sure the ppl around him are well-suited to kind of give him teh space he needs.
tho tbf im not sure the estate is the healithiest place in general
it kind of feels like prison
QUESTION 3. Victor’s life changes a lot when he’s forced to join Nate’s team. Why do you think Nate is so vehement about having Victor as a temporary member on his team? Is he honestly just trying to help Victor, or is there is some other hidden reason? What did you think the way the retrievals were handled says about the world and its view on Variants? How might the first mission change Victor’s perspective on Variants and how they’re treated (if at all)? How will it affect how Victor deals with other team missions and/or the course of the story? Lastly, do you believe that Victor will be able to makes amends and bond with the team, or will he continue to be chastised and treated somewhat lesser?
spire
The way that variants are trained at places like Urq and Miller to almost solely police their own community is disturbing. Vic wants no part of it and it's perfectly understandable
Variants are monitored so closely through their whole lives. it's invasive.
RebelVampire
yeah. and i mean...theres a degree i want to be understanding. i would not want untrained variants just walking around causing accidents and such. cause theyve shown that their powers can be damaging not just to others but themselves and also all the property around them. so i can understand that variants kind of need a special thing going on for everyone's protection
but man do those places feel like prison
like when you cant even let someone's mom see their kid off
thats a bad sign
spire
In that kind of environment a variant is pressured to do whatever they can to appear trustworthy. Even if Nate is trying to help Vic out I think he's ultimately trying to make himself look better by helping Vic succeed
RebelVampire
that could be although i feel theres easier ways then making under the table secret deals. tho tbh i think theres a mix going on here. like i think nate does want to help victor and wants to see him succeed. but i also feel like nate isnt altruistic either. more like he wants to help victor cause he feels like victor is his one failure that he cant leave to continue to be a failure just for the sake of his own pride.
Superjustinbros
“I think he's ultimately trying to make himself look better by helping Vic succeed”
This thought caught my eyes
RebelVampire
although it could also be that nate sees something of himself reflected in victor. cause nate did freak out when masha wasnt just flat out listening to his captain's orders. and i kind of feel that reflects his own feelings of being unsure of himself
Superjustinbros
Perhaps
RebelVampire
but i kind of wonder if theres an issue of dormancy at play in all this? cause if nate feels like he's losing his powers and position soon, that could be a prime motivator in whatever he feels hes got to do
like hes running out of his chance to do that one super awesome thing that immortalizes him in history
spire
Ooooooooo that's a very interesting thought
Reminiscent of thinkin you need to be ultra successful by the time you're 30
I hadn't thought of nates motivation that way before :0
RebelVampire
yeah and this is kind of an extreme case of needing to be successful by 30. cause in this case its kind of true in a way. since im sure if youre a variant the powers are kind of part of who you are. but by 30 you lose that and essentially have to redefine who you are as a person. and i think thats more true with the way their system is set up since their glorified prisons are so life encompassing.
spire
Yeah. That's got to be terrifying, knowing your whole identity is going to disappear one day, one day SOON
RebelVampire
yes. or so were led to believe. cause tbf i got sinister vibes from that scene with the doctor checking young victor for dormancy. so maybe all we know is a lie and dormancy is not a natural process but something forced upon variants.
spire
OOOOOOOOHH
Terrifying if tru
Superjustinbros
Yeah that scene creeped me out a bit
and it just came out of nowhere
RebelVampire
cause i agree with young victor. why are you checking a kid for dormancy if you know the typical ages for dormancy
and i feel that line is there for a reason
spire
I wonder if he's still wondering that now, 9 years later?
And I hope he is
RebelVampire
maybe hell remember it
Superjustinbros
Exactly, Rebel. (about the dormacy part)(edited)
RebelVampire
cause to tie in the 2nd part of that question, i def think victor is on the path to see the injustice in how variants are treated
those facial expressions in the van were already on the extreme i feel sorry for these people side
QUESTION 4. Inadvertently, Victor becomes involved with a dangerous arsonist named Paulina. What do you think Paulina’s powers are? Is she a pyro as many believe, or is there something funky going on with her powers like Victor believes? Why do you believe Paulina attacked Miller, and why do you think she’s so desperately looking for Chalice? Where do you think Paulina even came from given she isn’t declaring any facility as her origin? Why, of all people, do you think Paulina went to Victor specifically for help? Given Victor gets Julia involved, how might the residents of Earl Estate affect Victor helping Paulina or not? In general, do you believe Victor will help Paulina or not, and how will this choice affect the rest of the story?
Superjustinbros
I'm going to say maybe she has multiple powers versus most of the other characters that only have one
spire
That's what I was thinking too
Superjustinbros
I mean she really is mysterious, since her profile is still //||?⁄⁄/⁄\ | on the site
RebelVampire
idk. i mean its certainly possible. but im also willing to think that she has one power that doesnt fit any of the predefined powers the world established. so like shes a new variant type. or that she knows how to use her pyro powers in a way that nobody thought possible
but multiple powers is still possible
im just more willing to error on the side of it still fitting in with established laws and we just dont get the full picture yet
Superjustinbros
maybe like dark/gravity powers, or some power that's otherwise considered taboo?
spire
I think ultimately Vic's going to be looking for some truth and working with Pauli will appear? To get him some answers
Superjustinbros
Considering het background is nothing like the others
And yeah, maybe that ends up happening
http://inhibit.smackjeeves.com/files/what.png I mean can anyone translate this(edited)
RebelVampire
no but its probably just for the purposes of making her mysterious
and wont change to not give new readers spoilers XD
spire
Yes I believe that's simply to keep it mysterious for new readers
Superjustinbros
Yeah
RebelVampire
i think victor will def help paulina, although im not sure i get the impression paulina is gonna inspire victor to look for truth persay. though if she gets him to chalice, i think chalice will make him question stuff.
Superjustinbros
Maybe, just maybe.(edited)
RebelVampire
i kind of get the impression that paulina didnt come from any facility but instead has been living and training outside the system. cause we dont really know the process by which the facilities collect variants in the first place. like obviously we see victor's mom bring victor. but like...was it the law? was it under threat hed be taken anyway? how did ppl know?(edited)
and without knowing these things i can think of a lot of reasons paulina just skirted by the system
Superjustinbros
Definitely could be something outside the system, since it's still a mystery
spire
I'm wondering if the only reason Pauli chased Vic down to Earl is because she has blackmail to make him help her find chalice. If she asked anyone else she's obvs get turned in to the police or taken home?? Wherever that is???
Well, I guess it's not really black mail. So I don't really know
RebelVampire
maybe paulina just picked him cause hes the only variant she knows now who didnt immediately try to arrest her
and tbf
victor is a good choice cause he would seem easy to intimidate into doing what you want him to do
spire
TRUE LMAO
RebelVampire
tho i couldnt fathom why she wants to find chalice. i mean the assumption is she wants their help. but maybe she super hates them and chalice is corrupt and bad. and that there is no good in this world. or something depressing like that.
Superjustinbros
lmao
Plus he's the protagonist
RebelVampire
paulina got super meta and said "hey victor you feel like a protagonist. you can probably help"
XD
Superjustinbros
XD
Protagonist Syndrome in a nutshell
RebelVampire
that makes me feel bad for victor. victor seems like the last person whod ever want to be a protagonist
just wants to sleep in his room instead
spire
Hashtag relatable tbh
Superjustinbros
Yes
RebelVampire
since we only have 4 mins left, are there any final thoughts to share?
Superjustinbros
I'd love to do the same lol
I want to say this has been a great read so far, it's got great characters, lots of emotion, and lots of charm.
(And lots of good expressions)
Good luck with the comic, Eve, it's really going strongly so far.
spire
I think inhibit really nails what it feels like to be pinned by the expectations put on you by all levels of society, but still allowing itself to breathe and be funny and so human
RebelVampire
i think inhibit is a great story with memorable personalities. but most of all it has a relateable protagonist whose inner demons can speak to most ppl, and watching his journey is definitely probably something that will inspire hope
unless victor dies
then no hope
COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB END!
Sadly, this wraps up this week’s Thursday Book Club chat for now. Thank you so much to everyone for reading and joining us! We want to give a special thank you to Eve Greenwood / evegwood, as well, for making Inhibit. If you liked the comic, make sure to support Eve Greenwood / evegwood’s efforts however you’re able to~!
Read and Comment: http://www.inhibitcomic.com/
Eve Greenwood / evegwood’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/evegwood
Eve Greenwood / evegwood’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/evegwood
Eve Greenwood / evegwood’s Paypal Donation Link: https://www.paypal.me/evegwood
Eve Greenwood / evegwood’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/evegwood
Comic Tea Party- Thursday Book Club
Next week’s Thursday Book Club will be about Princess Pups by Lindsay Hornsby. For participants, you have the next week to read as much of the comic as you would like~! We hope to see you on Thursday, January 3rd, from 5PM to 7PM PST for the chat in #thursday_bookclub!
Comic’s Main Site: https://tapas.io/series/Princess-Pups
#ctparchive#comics#webcomics#indie comics#comic chat#comic discussion#book club#bookclub#webcomic book club#webcomic bookclub#comic tea party#ctp#inhibit#evegwood#eve greenwood
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On Elias
[this is the third (3rd) time I’ve tried posting this since Tumblr’s mobile search/tag search keeps eating the post. because it’s perfectly fine with showing untagged personal posts and spam whenever you search for something, but randomly decides when to show Actual Content]
ok look I know people don’t always read the OP’s tags but I keep getting “I’M SURE HE’S EVIL” comments on a pair of gifsets with fairly obviously positive parallels and reblogging something just to definitively say “that mysterious character is eviiiiiiil” is Not Cool, even if it’s in the tags.
Yes, recent commentator, Elias definitely broke into the house. It's probably why he suggested that the Johnsons go out in the first place! But the common assumption is A) that he planted the books and B) that he did so for a malicious reason. It seems as obvious as it could possibly be while remaining unconfirmed. It seems so obvious in such a twisty show that I think it isn’t that straightforward.
Gosh, where to begin? Firstly, names and etymology are pretty good theory fodder and Easter eggs, e.g., ‘Hap’=haphephobia and all its ‘hap’-prefixed variants; ‘Khatun’ is both an old title of nobility and a modern word referring to any woman. 'Rahim' means ‘merciful’ or 'servant of the merciful'. 'Elias' is a cognate of 'Elijah'. Elijah was the Abrahamic prophet who sort of had a special connection with women and children; who was cared for by an angel; who resurrected the dead; who entered Heaven without dying at the end of his earthly life; who is sometimes believed to have become an angel. All of this information is available on Wikipedia! So even if Elias did plant the books, I don’t automatically assume he’s malicious.
There’s this interesting bit in an interview with The Atlantic:
Marling: [...] I think one of the original stories that was influential actually comes from Jewish mysticism. Do you know it?
Kornhaber: Is this leaving the door open for Elijah at Passover?
Marling: Yeah. It’s so beautiful. I think it’s amazing to try and use that as a reminder of trying to stay open. I struggle with that all the time. You get scared and you close the door. But I think The OA, she’s inviting them to let a new thing in.
(Principal Gilchrist's first name is another cognate of Elijah - 'Ellis' - and his surname means 'servant of Christ'. People have made the connection between Ellis and his "water under the bridge" comment to Ellis Island and the nearby Statue of Liberty, plus he has a snow globe of the latter.)
Elias’ potential connection with an ‘evil’ Rachel was probably debunked early by Zal Batmanglij on Twitter: the plants in her cell died because she refuses to water them as an act of rebellion. I'm too lazy to go through the whole thing about why her name being on the office wall in large Braille doesn't automatically mean she works there in the first place. I think she and Elias are connected (because of his car crash analogy and the “[My brother] never got to hear it”/”I’m a listener” lines), but I doubt it’s as evil agents.
Elias is shocked and defensive when he bumps into French in the house - but the scene follows French, so of course we aren't shocked and suspicious about French’s presence. Basically, the audience has had the same reaction to Elias breaking in as Elias initially has to French breaking in. Part of what makes Elias seem suspicious is his reaction. IMO Elias doesn't even imply or confirm that the OA was lying - he just doesn't correct French. The other 'suspicious' thing he does is...move his eyes while hugging French, which isn’t incriminating on its own since the emotion is ambiguous.
There's confusing reasoning behind why Elias would place the books in the first place. The books seem tailored to match major aspects of the OA's story. The immediate assumption is that if someone planted the books, they meant for the Crestwood Five to find them and conclude that she based lies upon them. But if that's the case, Elias likely had no way of knowing that French would break in, go to her room, thoroughly search her room, and look where he did. There was no guarantee that any of the Five would find the books, jump to the conclusion that OA was lying, then share the discovery with the others.
Alternatively, you could argue that Elias planted the books intending for someone else to find them during an investigation and use it as proof that OA was making up stories, and the Five would fall for it in the process. But in that case, why did he let French leave with all of the books? And remember, Buck kept one and the rest let him. It’s possible that they submitted the other books to the FBI offscreen, or that Elias replaced the books. But I’ve never seen the theory cover what happened to the books after the reveal, so I won’t play with that hypothetical situation here.
Maybe Elias planted the books for someone else to find and didn’t know French took them. After all, we don't know what happened after the hug. But that introduces a new set of logical problems. How would French sneak a big, heavy box out of the house? He could take it if Elias had already left or wasn’t watching him...but why would Elias leave French unsupervised? Does anyone think that Elias ensured French left, then French broke in again not long afterwards and took the books, all offscreen? And couldn’t his presumably nearby car be a potential giveaway?
So, the books don't make much sense as an attempt to disillusion the Five. Some people think French's reaction stretches audience suspension of disbelief, right - I think it's an even bigger stretch that the FBI would predict a break-in and his reaction. To a lesser extent, the books also don't make sense as an attempt to frame OA, because they end up with the boys and don’t seem to play a role beyond breaking their faith. As for how French took the books while Elias was there, Elias advocates strategic passivity and avoids direct persuasion; I don't find it outlandish that French would say something like "I need to show proof to the others" then take the box, and Elias wouldn’t protest because it's not part of his agenda either way.
The next most obvious explanation for the books is if they really are OA’s. They weren’t necessarily used to construct a lie.
In the previous episode, OA had a conversation with BBA about how cultures that suffer more loss tend to have more totems. OA knew this because of an exhibit that she loved so much as a child that she made her parents take her back twice. It made a lasting impact on her, as evidenced by the wolf hoodie that reminds her of Homer’s. BBA is not with the boys when French reveals the books, so she doesn't even have the chance to recall that conversation. We don’t know if BBA learned about the books after the boys did. And the books were specifically stored beneath the wolf hoodie. The Five may not be aware of the hoodie’s significance; Elias wouldn’t know the hoodie’s significance unless OA wore it to a session and he asked why she has a hoodie with a wolf on it, or she spontaneously told him, both of which seem a bit far-fetched. (Onscreen, at least, she never wore it to a therapy session.)
Ehh, miscellaneous notes:
It’s uncertain that OA can read English text. But the conversation with BBA says that the Thing Itself isn't as important as what it symbolises. (“Objects carry meaning in difficult times.”) She doesn't need to be able to read the books in order for them to mean something. Anyway, she might’ve been bilingual from a young age; she was 7 or 8 when she went blind and she seems fluent in English by the time we see her in the American boarding school. (There might be proof that she can write in English, since she signed the bottom of the note she left for her parents? It’s been interpreted both ways so idk.)
The Five getting discovered in the abandoned house probably wasn’t set up by Elias. BBA had previously slipped and told Principal Gilchrist about it while driving to save Steve.
I don’t strongly rule it out, but I don’t think Elias spied on the Five, because he only realises who French is when he tells him his name. Unless he’s pretending.
Why were the books under OA’s bed, under the hoodie? Maybe she hid her totems in case her parents found them, since Nancy already thought she had delusions that could easily be linked to The Oligarchs and The Iliad. It’s unclear to me, but there might be a moment in the first episode where OA shoves the video camera under her bed (starts at 29:15-ish), foreshadowing that she might’ve done the same thing with the books later.
The issues I have with my own theory are:
According to the label on the Amazon box, the books were delivered in September. That's at odds with how OA's video was posted in February 2016. But the FBI (or another organisation) ordering the books also doesn't make sense: they would’ve been planning to discredit her months before she returned or assembled the Five or told her story. Even if they knew about the experiments, Hap dumping OA on the road in February seemed entirely spontaneous; that itself was the result of a seemingly random event (getting caught by the sheriff). More importantly, I’d question why the boys didn't notice the discrepancy in dates, and why the FBI didn't realise it themselves. (Like, all they had to do was remove the label or use a different box.) How can they predict a very specific chain of events yet not be smart enough to remove a label? It’s not impossible in the broader scope of the story - maybe they have reality-warping powers, maybe there’s time travel involved - but right now it’s a big stretch just to support the basic theory that Elias planted the books. So I suspect the label is a minor production oversight. Considering exactly how briefly the date is onscreen and difficult to read even when the scene is paused, I think it wasn’t meant to be read by the audience. (Compare the length of the date’s visibility and its readability to earlier in the scene, when French looks at the newspaper clippings, or whenever a phone/computer screen takes up the frame.)
How did OA order the books? The hardest part is how she went online, but she could’ve placed the order sometime in the first episode before the router was taken away. It’s possible to order things from Amazon without a credit card and have them sent to a pickup point or post office, so that’s not a big issue if she had money somewhere (or stole it from her parents, which is 100% in-character for her). Sneaking the package into the house is another problem - but, then again, she’s cunning and her room is conveniently located so things can fairly easily go in/out of her window.
Elias suggested that the Johnsons go out for a family dinner. That somewhat complicates the timeframe he would’ve had for breaking in; if the outing had gone 'normally' they would've returned home before it was very late, yet still at an unpredictable time. (Again, he probably had no way of knowing they’d choose French's workplace, that it’d go badly, etc.) He was unable to break into the Johnsons' home on the night the OA finished her story, which is why he broke in later on, when French did. I guess Nancy and Abel went home after the incident at the Olive Garden and Elias saw the house was occupied, so he waited, and luckily for him they left the next day?
I’m not sure whether Elias lies when French asks if OA told him about Homer, the mine, and Hap’s studies. She told Elias specifics about the first and third premonitions, but it’s unclear how much she explained the second, Homer wasn’t mentioned by name onscreen, and we don’t know if she talked about the movements and angels. It’s worth noting that right after their last session, Elias does lie. OA explained her dreams, including the previous night’s. Afterwards, Nancy assumes Elias knows what happened last night...but he says no, seemingly to see how Nancy explains it. He’s capable of minor lies to Learn Things for ambiguous reasons. (Does he lie to Nancy for OA’s benefit? Or is it because he doesn’t trust OA, or is it simply an effort to hear different sides? I think the tone of the scene suggests he’s trying to help OA, but you might think it’s deliberately misleading. Anyway, they’re not all mutually exclusive motives.)
If the books really were OA’s, what was her reaction when she returned home and they were missing? She probably wouldn't tell her parents. But what would she think happened? Possibly she might be able to put two and two together since she’d previously helped Steve sneak into her room. Maybe she doesn’t seem sad right before the shooting because she deduced that the Five wanted to help her, and she didn’t know that the boys concluded she was lying.
We might be able to get general sense of where The OA is headed by examining Brit and Zal's previous work. Sound of My Voice is the most similar. One of the most common (and plausible) theories for SOMV is that Maggie was telling the truth and the 'FBI agent' wasn't actually an FBI agent. But there are other reused elements that were subverted: OA is much less intimidating and more personable than Maggie; the Five are inclined to believe her without being cult-like; the agent was trying to catch Maggie without her knowledge instead of possibly pretending to help her. I kinda hope it's a meta Red Herring planted for people who've watched both.
Elias was in the house for a reason. I think the video camera and all of the tapes might be a Chekhov's Gun. Brit Marling said something along the lines of "it’s worthy to question Elias’ motives"; he doesn’t necessarily have Good intentions. However, him planting the books isn’t a sure thing and we know nothing about whatever he did in the time gap before the shooting; there’s no indication that he helped or hindered OA in any way, if they’re still in contact, etc. So I think it’s a Bit Much to leap to "ELIAS IS EVIL" Not everyone who thinks he planted the books assumes he’s evil, which is nice. But it's Tiring seeing the evil accusation treated as if it's rare or a new theory, especially considering the depth of analysis that the rest of the show receives.
#elias rahim#the oa#oatheories#prairie johnson#oa#my oa theories#@ search function meet me in the pit you bitch#what are you doing? why are you so determined to smear elias' literally good name?#it's still not showing up??? i'm going to flip a table????
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Blink Reads Oathbringer - Chapters 55-57, Interludes 4-6
Chapter Fifty-Five – Alone Together
I'm calling it, it's Sazed. Balancing Preservation and Ruin ain't easy. SAAAAAAZE~
RLAIN. RLAIN RLAIN RLAIN OH FUCKYEAH WE'RE GETTING A RLAIN CHAPTER BLESS U BRANDOSANDO
It'd be really cool if that became a thing, if humans (Rosharan- variant 'humans' at the very least) could somehow learn to hear the Rhythms and get a better understanding of the Listeners/Singers/Parshendi. A step towards peace.
[winces] Yeaaaah, I noted back in Rock's chapter how watching the humans 'invade' and build in Narak must be really, really difficult for him.
The last. Oh, Rlain.
He still feels heavily ostracized. Even with him being Bridge Four, he's still set apart from them in ways they'll never be able to truly understand.
(okay, but an archer squire Windrunner. that could be really cool and useful.)
Please take Rock's advice. Bounce some stones off of their skulls when they deserve it.
Sando please let Rlain fly with the others.
Yeah. They were so afraid of becoming those things once again that they assassinated Gavilar and brought the wrath of warlike Alethkar down upon their heads.
Can we get more Renarin+Rlain scenes and friendship can we please-
Okay but with Rlain attuning to Rhythms and now with Rock's family around (we at least know that Rock can pick up on them ever so faintly) I'll bet one of them starts humming along with him, even if they don't realize what they're doing.
!!!! Skin patterns have/had an importance or maybe even function among the Parshendi? Can they change, with or without changing forms, or are they genetic?
Oh come on, guys, you're getting worked up over Renarin maybe learning to read? Kaladin, please talk some sense into them.
EXTRA MANLY. LOPEN I'M WH E E ZI NG
(though tbh that's actually a great way to put it)
Thank you Kaladin for putting things into words that they can all understand and mull over on their own. Hopefully they'll even start internalizing it.
Rock is the unofficial psychiatrist of Bridge Four, apparently. Ahhh, but they're all a big support group for eac other in the end (yes, Teft, this is a feelings-sharing party, now join the club). Alone together indeed.
[winces] Save for the one even more alone. You can't blame Rlain for his frustration.
At least Kaladin's willing to admit that he doesn't know, but it willing to try anyway.
Chapter Fifty-Six – Always With You
Ooo, this is the first time Hoid's chatted with Harmony? No interaction before this letter. Not that Hoid would have reason to do so, but you never know…
“How do you know so much about Adonalsium” HE WAS KINDA THERE, SAZE
oh shit oh shit oh shit Dalinar's going back to the Feverstone Keep vision, Jasnah and Navani with him. We're gonna find out something important, this chapter, this is a Recreance vision-!
He's getting a lot better at the vision-transfer, but I don't think it's technically part of his Surges? That's a complete unknown, though, since it was Honor himself that left the visions.
Timeline note for the Recreance – maybe 2,000 years ago.
(side note, but listening to the Journey OST during this part is jiving really well. it's shiver-inducing.)
False Desolation. What. Jasnah, plz continue your elaboration.
Mmm, that makes sense, especially with what we know of the Parshendi so far and their efforts to fight off the Voidspren. Of course Vorin teachings would deny there were any survivors. But how the Recreance, then….
Oh, hey! Gawx! You've gotten a lot snarkier over time in these visions, at least from that fist quip.
I wonder if Honor included the dying screams of the spren into this vision, and he's feeling it at the very edge of his senses.
Speaking of which, this must mean that Honor was Shattered at some point after the Recreance.
Gawx honestly does have it hard, and now he's pulled at in different directions by the people who want to see their homeland safe and the Blackthorn who wants to save Roshar. It's not an easy place he's in.
Shivers there, Dalinar. Good speech.
Technically, Gawx, Dalinar owns up to what he's done – or at least what he can remember? He doesn't deny the Blackthorn, but he is trying to be a different man than he once was.
….what's happening. The vision's not ending. And this man in white and gold….?
ODIUM
FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUCK
AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'VE “ALWAYS BEEN WITH [DALINAR]”
ARE YOU SPECIFICALLY THE REASON THE BLACKTHORN IS AS HE WAS. NOT ONE OF THE UNMADE, BUT YOU YOURSELF
FUCKING HELL
Chapter Fifty-Seven – Passion
Oh good it's another Dalinar chapter, because if it had changed POVs I would have rioted
Oooo, calling Hoid back to Scadrial, Sazed? To speak with the kandra?
YEP BACK THE FUCK AWAY DALINAR, HE IS BEYOND YOU RIGHT NOW
g o d the Stormfather is whimpering and if that doesn't tell you how much you need to fear…
Dalinar looks like he's gonna drop on the spot of a panic attack and tbh I already would be
Don't you dare call Dalinar 'son'.
And there's Odium himself confirming that this Stormfather-bonding is different than all the others before it; I was right.
What shackles you, Odium. What is it specifically.
SHIT, DALINAR, WATCH YOUR WORDS
'Intent' is capitalized and obviously means just that but does it also mean that it has something to do with the broader spectrum of power
Consequences aka probably ridding himself of Roshar a la Alderaan
Oooo, not only are you bound by the Shards themselves, but even the Splinters here somehow have power wrapped up with you.
Now see, here's where we come to Odium Blatantly Fucking Lying, because if the embodiment of Honor cared only for bonds and oaths themselves, then you wouldn't see any difference between Honorspren and Highspren. Not to mention the Passion thing (likely subtly sliding in a tie to the Thaylen Passions there as well). You, care? Love? HAH.
[squints @ Odium] While I can believe you had something to do with the Recreance, it's definitely not as you're explaining it.
Ohhhh, is that confirmation that the Nightwatcher is Cultivation – or at least an avatar of hers?
Oh shit, oh shit, a vision of sorts, touching the power of the Odium-shard itself-
...what's there. Something Not Of The Vision. Oh man is it Lift. Please let it be Lift. Let her flip off Odium himself.
It IS.
But. Odium couldn't sense her? Not entirely? Cultivation DID give her something special
“What was that thing, tight-butt?” Lift you are the pride of Roshar and the gem of all worlds
oh my god please make the first thing you do in Urithiru stealing Dalinar's lunch
That's… definitely a way to end Part Two with a bang.
Interlude Four – Kaza
Oooo, we're back out on the ocean!
!!!! Someone else with visions? I don't think this is another Bondsmith, but maybe another Truthwatcher…?
'hirelings out of Steen' Steen, Steen, where's that map… ah! South of Shinovar, east of Aimia, and probably the closest country to Aimia, save that island chain stretching out from Tukar
Ahhh, she's an older lady, too! Good, we need all the older ladies we can get.
Soulcaster? But does she have one or is he calling her that as a title?
So, they were braving the slower Everstorm winds, huh – or… not the Everstorm, but a strange, strong storm that has nothing to do with either? Either way, they're aiming for Aimia. Now there's a land that we need to know more of.
Ahhh, so she's a Soulcaster (but probably not an ardent because Not Vorin) and looking to reverse the whole turning-to-stone bit. ….understandable, but you think Aimia holds the answers? Maybe? Why? Is it because it's the last place you have to look, or do they have some sort of rumoured super-medicine there?
Well, there's a rumour of some kind, at least.
…..not stone, smoke.
Oh that is interesting. The transformation with Soulcaster use must be dependent on certain variables – what kind of transfigurations they most commonly do, perhaps – considering that all of those we saw at the Shattered Plains were turning to stone, not smoke, and most of their job would be to make buildings and food.
Ooof, a prisoner of her own family, kept for their use. Even without the whole 'dying' issue, it's no wonder she fled. (Assuming she wasn't just making up the story to scare off the sailor.)
Huh. I wonder if extended soulcasting starts to connect one to Shadesmar each time they use it, or if it's only when the person starts getting closer and closer to death-by-soulcasting.
“Each would have required several Soulcasters in concert.” Or maybe just one Elsecaller or Lightweaver with a fuckton of Stormlight.
Again with 'something larger' that's attached(?) to spren that normal people can't see.
That is a powerful call that she's almost losing herself to, and quite possibly a spren that's interested in her backing the Soulcasting. Hmmm.
So, the Soulcaster devices came out of Aimia and Akinah in particular. Huuuuh. Were the Soulcasters an attempt to mimic Radiant powers, if so, and were there any Aimian Radiants? Or were they an attempt at balancing power?
Wait, what. Everyone's starting to go unconscious? And Kaza feels like she's being pulled to Shadesmar? Is there an overlap here of the Physical/Cognitive realms…? Also the shadow stretching in the wrong direction like all the Aimians have – does that mean that whole people have/had some kind of presence in Shadesmar that can be seen in the Physical realm?
The sailors are all dead? ...well, shit.
Wait, and the sailors were right about greatshells coming here to die? That wasn't just a pirate-treasure sort of legend? (not that it matters, as none of them are left to even see it)
The cook? (Always, the cooks are so important in these books…) Ahhhhh, another cremling-person, fffffftttt- We need more information on these people, stat.
“The cost would be the ends of worlds.” Plural. Something exists in Aimia that could affect the greater Cosmere. Well then.
Interlude Five – Taravangian
FUCK OFF YOU OLD MURDER-MAN
“Today, Taravangian was a storming genius.” I can't help but laugh at the phrasing, even as a corner of my mind just goes fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-
He is not wasting time here on pleasantries of any sort, but just powering ahead and being a complete ass as he does.
Well, that answers my question of 'does Malata know bout Taravangian and his plans' though I did not expect that she'd already been a member of the Diagram before she'd become a Radiant. I am somewhat pleased at knowing 'the Dustbringers would be the Radiants most likely to accept their cause', not because it gives me any pleasure to know that goddamn storming Taravangian is getting any Radiants on his side, but because it's another step closer to confirming my suspicion that the Dustbringers are the I Will Do What Must Be Done order, closest of the Radiants to the-ends-justify-the-means.
GIVE US MORE DUSTBRINGER INFO, SANDERSON, I DEMAND IT
H e r alds but smart!Taravangian is an insufferable ass, both to other people and in his own head
“That day, he'd been God. Today, he could be God's prophet.” I'd start to wonder if you were Odium-influenced too, but this seems different – too detached even in your moments of grandest self-glorying – to be Odium's touch
And here we have the complete opposite of Jasnah, who's a beautiful example of atheism done right; this is the kind of atheism that glorifies ~~science~~ and spits on others' beliefs while holding itself above all else – its' own manner of extremist fundamentalism
'the Dalinar paradigm' sounds foreboding
Wildcard Renarin! Oooo, is he a blindspot in more than just Taravangian's Diagram, I wonder?
Well, that's just unnecessary. Storming hell, Taravangian.
Reference note – Vargo. Probably Taravangian's given name.
Okay but indoor farming would indeed explain a good part of Urithiru's self-sufficiency – which it had to be – and is probably related to the existence of the uber-fabrial that extends through the whole city.
“the part of the world that mattered” aaahahahahahahah fuck you Taravangian
“Then we force him to step down, so that I can take his place at the head of the monarchs.” AAAAHAHAHAHAHAH WELL GUESS WHAT YOU'RE GONNA GET HIGHKING KHOLIN SOONER OR LATER SO EVEN IF YOU DO IT'S NOT GONNA FUCKIN' MATTER
To be fair, pushing Dalinar until he collapses isn't a bad plan, considering the pressure the world is exerting and the weight he places on himself, but he's still the Tank, come on.
[rolls over laughing at the thought of Taravangian thinking he has any bargaining power against Odium]
Fuck off, you senile psychopath.
Interlude Six – This One Is Mine
Another Venli chapter, and thins time she's going to open herself for a Form of Power. And yet, with that title as well as the spren that followed you last time… I don't think this will you the way you think it will. Just a hunch.
….do the Parshendi actually have gemhearts. I mean, I would make sense considering their change of forms, but… still.
No rainwater from this storm. Just ash. (But didn't the Everstorm bring rain when we saw it in Edgedancer?)
[hums] Have we seen Demid's new Fused-form yet? The ridges under the carapace sounds like a form we might have seen in one of Kaladin or Moash's chapters, but perhaps it's different.
Mmm. Though Venli's form changed, indicating a new kind of bonded spren, she retained her mind. Not a Voidspren, then. Handful of sapphires says that the little comet-spren had something to do with it.
“grand of the Fused”? Ooooo, you're important, you have a title
...or maybe you just have a tendency to crush anything that doesn't pay obeisance. That works too.
[winces] What an awakening for Venli, and what a truly horrible way for it to happen.
Well, even if you didn't bond with the little spren, it's there. Not 'one of the same' spren you saw near Eshonai, but the very one, there's no way it isn't.
And you protected it.
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Hi, big fan of your blog! =) I am a relatively new SW fan & thought I'd ask a veteran: what's your take on Qui-Gon & Dooku? I think about them a lot more than I should, mostly because Dooku is...Dooku, and Qui-Gon was still Qui-Gon after being effectively raised by the guy. There isn't much canon info about them other than in AoTC when Dooku tells Obi that Qui-Gon gave him updates about his padawan, which kinda implies they had a casual relationship at the very least. And Wookiepedia (1/2)
said something about how Dooku left the order partly because he was disillusioned by Qui-Gon's death. I'm not sure I understand what that means, exactly. The Dooku I saw in film & TCW seemed pretty much consumed with being a powerful Sith Lord and the antithesis of Yoda's idea of the Order. How do you think they got along as master/padawan? How much truth do you think there is to the statement of Qui-Gon's death contributing to Dooku walking away from the order? I get that Qui-Gon was a (2/3)
known maverick & Dooku wasn't traditional either, and maybe he thought Qui-Gon might harbor the same ideas he did about the order & someday join him in walking away? There's just a lot I wonder about in their relationship and how much of a part it played in later events. Or how they even managed a relationship, given Qui-Gon was an eccentric with an affinity for stray life forms & Dooku was...a lot of things, but compassionate is not on that list. (3/3) Sorry this is so long!!!
Hi! Ironically, Dooku is a character I’ve thought about a lot, while Qui-Gon isn’t. (Weirdly, I don’t think I’ve ever actually written Qui-Gon in a long and storied career of writing PT-era Star Wars fanfic.)
I think that as a Jedi Dooku was simultaneously very traditional and very much a maverick, in the way that Yoda is simultaneously very traditional and very much a maverick, and I think a lot of that probably comes as push back to having Yoda as a master. Which I suspect resonates down that master-and-apprentice lineage: Dooku reacts to Yoda, Qui-Gon reacts to Dooku, Obi-Wan reacts to Qui-Gon, Anakin reacts to Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka reacts to Anakin. And which shows up in other lineages as well; it’s just harder to track because we don’t have other lineages that are as clear as the Yoda lineage. (The other big one is Mace-Depa-Kanan (Caleb)-Ezra, and aside from that there’s Luminara and Barriss. However, we only see those other lineages in the context of the Clone Wars (or the Rebellion, for Kanan and Ezra), and the Clone Wars hugely changed the way that the Jedi Order functioned, and obviously the Purge completely threw everything out.)
My take on Dooku as a Jedi is that he was very, very radical, initially in a way that was tolerated by the Order. (I suspect that prior to the Clone Wars, there were a lot more schools of thought about the Jedi’s place in the galaxy and relationship to the Force and to the Republic and how the Order should function; it’s pretty clear that Mace and Yoda both come out of two different philosophies.) I think I said somewhere that I have this headcanon about Dooku and Depa Billaba both being in the same sabacc and philosophy club prior to TPM; at some point it probably stopped being academic to him and he went looking for more information, and I think this was probably anywhere from a few months to a few years before TPM. At some point he also either left or was kicked off the Council. (Given Depa Billaba’s relative youth -- prior to TCW the Council skews older; in TCW and RotS the Council skews very, very young, I have a theory about this -- she probably got his seat, either temporarily or permanently at the time.) I think there’s some behind the scenes stuff from Dave Filoni that suggests that Dooku was already Sithily-inclined prior to TPM, but I tend to take BTS more as guidelines rather than hard canon.
Anyway, most of that is just me thinking out loud and not actually answering your question, whoops.
AotC suggests that Dooku and Qui-Gon were actually pretty close, despite not having seen each other for a long time. Given Dooku’s, uh, everything, I would not actually be terribly surprised to find out that Dooku went on Jedi pilgrimage for the decade or so of Obi-Wan’s apprenticeship, especially if he was in the midst of having a crisis of faith, which given that immediately afterwards he left the Order and became a Sith lord seems fairly likely. Someone he cared about deeply dying under mysterious circumstances that were immediately hushed up probably kicked him over the edge. (Especially if he tried to reach out to Obi-Wan and was rebuffed by Yoda or Mace going “yeah, maybe don’t bother the kid at the moment” or some variant thereof.)
Also, like...it is possible to have a relationship with someone who’s pretty radically different in temperament than you are, and even be raised by someone who is. But I don’t think that they actually were that different? Or not more so than Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, or Obi-Wan and Anakin, for that matter. It’s hard to track back to what Dooku would have been like as a Jedi master when we’ve only seen him as someone who’s been Sith lord for the past ten years. Qui-Gon turned out all right, so that relationship couldn’t have been that bad or atypical.
(I know there’s a Legends bit about Dooku having another padawan, Komari Vosa, who went dark side, but let’s not get into that at the moment because it’s not canon anymore and I never liked it anyway.)
Anyway, this is a long and rambling response that doesn’t really answer your question, but I hope is at least interesting to read?
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It's probably not smthn super interesting to you but, all the new Superman costumes when I looked at them just... reminded me of Connor, mostly? (I ended up playing with them to make a Superman Connor which was fun.) But my main question is, do you think that "Superman" is a name that could ever really be passed down, kind of like how Dick was given Batman (briefly)? Not in the way of lots of people rushing in, but DC seriously trying to introduce a new Superman? Who would you give that role?
Yeah, I can see that. Same basic design, just with a yellow negative space in the S and the yellow buckle on the belt.
As for the successor business, the idea of certain superhero identities as ‘off-limits’ has never quite sat right with me. Not everyone exactly demands that another hero take up their mantle - if Peter Parker was the one and only Spider-Man I don’t think many New Yorkers would notice for long, in-universe he’s a B-list superhero at best - but they’re bigger-than-life characters, often standing for things to their city or world larger than their own physical selves; it means something for that symbol to continue past whoever started it. I never liked old-school Earth-Two Dick Grayson staying Robin forever because he ‘wasn’t worthy’ to be Batman; the guy himself would have wanted that, he’d been doing it longer than Bruce by the time he died, and he had the same training and resources and motivation. And at least there’s the question with Batman of whether you legitimately could logistically equal the decades of unrelenting globe-spanning training he went through; with most heroes, if you have the power and the goodness of heart, you’re off to the races. Batman isn’t a mythical totem bound to the heart and soul of a single individual only to fade into the wind when Bruce Wayne passes on, it’s a suit he puts on that Dick Grayson or Tim Drake or Damian Wayne could put on too, and would have good reason to. And if Superman isn’t going to be Superman forever, whether that means he dies in battle or gets old or he goes off into space, there’s absolutely a reason for someone to fill that gap. Even if his immediate family didn’t, someone would.
Not to mention a lineage of Supermen and Superwomen stretching from the present to the 853rd century and beyond is just really cool. It gives you all kind of weird variants and possibilities even before you factor in the Multiverse, lets you do wild cross-time teamups, and plays with the ever-changing future of DC at any given time. And that they manage to exist is maybe the most tangible impact of Superman’s ideals across the breadth of space and time: the Starman legacy may eventually go rotten, the Green Lanterns may die out, the Allen/West line of Flashes has died about by Legion times, but eighty three thousand years down the line the moral imprint Kal-El leaves behind is still so strong that his great to the power of a hundred grandchildren, each and every one of whom could conquer galaxies, are to a woman and man the greatest heroes of their era. That such an impossible standard continues to be met in the face of infinite temptation in a time far farther away from us than the beginning of recorded history is the most monumental testament imaginable to how good Superman actually is at bringing out the best in people.
So who starts it?
Well, Kara as Superwoman’s an obvious choice - she’s got the power, she’s got the heart, and she’s the only other survivor of Krypton up to the task. But she’s always felt off as a successor to him for me - they spring from the same incident, so her motivations and origins are parallel to his rather than springing from him and his deal. She doesn’t wear the S-shield because of him, even if he’s the reason she calls herself ‘Supergirl’. It seems odd to discuss her as a successor in the same way as Batwoman for Batman - they’re associated characters, yes, but they’ve got their own things going on. More importantly they’d keep doing pretty much the same things they were already doing, in which case why bother getting rid of another character in the first place? Taking Superman’s place doesn’t do anything to Supergirl that her just growing up wouldn’t do with time anyway. It has to be someone where them entering that role represents a change.
The idea of Conner having to become Superman is loaded with potential, but that’s kind of the problem: I think the idea that he could be Superman one day is way more interesting than him actually being Superman would be. Maybe this is in part because I generally think of him as being a character of unfulfilled narrative potential, but the idea of this kinda goofy, rough-’n-tumble kid playing around with weird Kirby concepts and hanging out with the Teen Titans and resenting having to go to high school wondering if he might actually have to be Superman one day has a lot more going for it than whatever he’d actually be as Superman. I like the idea of the hybrid of Superman and Luthor being able to save the world in the way neither of them ever could, but only Luthor’s more unsavory aspects seem to be hinted at as a potential part of the package for Conner rather than his mighty intellect or ambition, so it mostly comes down to a stock Good Genes vs. Bad Genes argument that’s settled once and for all once he puts on the cape. Similarly, that he might fear the idea of being Superman the way a teenager fears having to get a 9-to-5 job when he grows up is fun - he knows that’s ultimately a thing he has to do to take care of those around him, and something he’ll probably be okay with when the time comes, but right now he’s not so sure he’s wild about it - but that means either he gets over it, or we get another Superman who often seems to hate being Superman. Plus he doesn’t have much of a background to draw on given he literally woke up on the day of his birth as a superhero, so again, aside from having to be a role model it’s not much of a logistical change for him. All-in-all while it’s interesting to see him in that role in potential futures, I think any destiny for Kon-El would probably be best served by him finding a different job title.
While I’d hope to see him in something a little more stylish than the above -maybe he could change costumes a lot, every time we see “Superman Secundus” he seems to wear a different uniform, so that could be a character detail - I think Jon Kent, the Boy of Tomorrow, would be the best option for a new Superman. For one big thing right upfront, while it’s probably about to be retconned out of him in March (probably for the best), he’s the one of the bunch who himself is the last son of a doomed world. Hell, more than that he’s the last son of a doomed DC Universe, the one way to feasibly one-up the significance of Krypton; even when he’ll have just been born on Earth, the idea of him as the final product of a classic DC has some potency.
That sense of legacy plays into something else with him: he’s the only one of the gaggle who actually thinks of Superman as Superman. Kara knew from day one that was just her cousin, Conner was born to be Superman, but Jon’s the one who grew up with Superman as his hero, not knowing just how true that was. He looks at Superman the way you look at Superman, and then he finds out his dad is Superman, coming at the idea from an even more direct place than Wally West. And being raised by Superman means he becomes a different character from him: he doesn’t grow up lonely and lost in the same ways Clark did, but he doesn’t have to go through the same trials or endure quite the same harsh lessons either. He’s could be the Nightwing to his Batman, not quite having the same kind of focus and drive but overall a better-adjusted person, which lets him go through the same basic motions you expect of Superman while still being a meaningfully different character.
Plus, he brings back a lot of Silver Age elements that don’t quite work for Superman anymore. I’m not a fan of Clark in-costume defending Smallville as Superboy, but Jon has Hamilton, meaning he can live out the whole Superboy status quo of defending a small town while also living as a normal schoolkid concealing his powers and super-brain. And while Clark becoming Superman is an all-but-meaningless name-change for Clark if he’s already been Superboy for years, for Jon that’s the biggest thing ever, making a career as Superboy much easier to pull off for him without invalidating anything. Plus, while the doofy Chris Reeve-style disguise doesn’t quite feel right anymore for Clark, it’d fit perfectly for someone as energetic and occasionally clumsy as Jon (especially if he parlays his obvious genius into the world of mad science as his day job when he grows up). You get the original Superman succeeded by the Silver Age Superman just as he was in the real world, and Jon brings enough to the table personality-wise while still being able to do the classic stuff (he can learn more about Krypton, but it’s fundamentally altered by being the home of his unknowable ancestors rather than the place he was born, for instance), and that differentiates him from the other two candidates. Obviously a lot of this is just potential no one has seized on yet, but if Superman set down the rules of the DCU, Jon grows up as a pure embodiment of that world, Super from childhood on and living without the burdens his dad had to. That to me makes him the most interesting possibility of the lot to see as a second Superman.
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