WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Loki Episode 3, "Lamentis," streaming now on Disney+.
Loki is a series completely unafraid to dive headfirst into its wild worldbuilding, taking the Marvel Cinematic Universe to unexplored depths as it plunges into what the nature of time travel and its management in the universe is like. But part of that exploration involves the dark mysteries behind the origins of the Time Variance Authority, and Loki just revealed a bombshell about its agents. The TVA agents who apprehended and processed Loki frequently proved an area of curiosity for the God of Mischief, and now he knows their biggest secret: They're variants.
Loki's previous inquiries into the nature of the TVA agents' pasts left him baffled, but it seems his counterpart Sylvie didn't quite share his curiosity. Sylvie's nature is far more paranoid and guarded than Loki's is, and when her toothy-grinned counterpart asked how her enchantment abilities worked, she played coy. But after starting to trust Loki, she revealed just how they worked, allowing her to reach into the mind of those she possesses and lock them in their own fantasy as she takes control of their body. Offhandedly, she then mentions the deeply tucked away fantasy of one of the TVA agents she possessed.
Loki immediately latches onto the implications, realizing that the TVA agents have their own pasts. Sylvie seems unimpressed, shrugging it off and treating the fact that they are variants as a matter of course. But Loki puts this together, acknowledging that they don't know that they're variants. With the end of the world around them, the pair have little time to explore the implications at length, but the possibilities are endless.
Previously, Loki was astonished to find out that one TVA agent didn't even know what a fish was. As far as he was concerned, his entire life consisted of clerical work behind a desk, but Loki and Sylvie's conversation indicates that he actually had a normal life as a human before his mind was wiped following his arrest. After becoming variants TVA agents, they spend the rest of their future working as cogs in the TVA's machine, and agents like Mobius have no idea.
The lives of these agents are dark and depressing, and the benevolence of the Time-Keepers who set them to their task goes entirely out the window. Mobius' pining for jet skis is likely an echo from a past he can barely remember, and even as he looks ahead to his future,e he seems resigned to the fact he may never actually ride a jet ski. With that perspective, Sylvie's plan to topple over the order created by the Time-Keepers as they cultivate their Sacred Timeline doesn't seem so bad, and it could well be up to the God of Mischief to save the countless employees from their monotonous eternities.
Loki and Sylvie may not be the Avengers, but they don't seem entirely malicious. Indeed, Sylvie's manipulation of the agent she captured in a margarita fantasy seems almost gentle by comparison to the fate the Time-Keepers handed her, and her babbling insistence that she just wants to go home reveals the existential crisis these agents are faced with when made aware of their fate. If there is any justice in the multiverse, there will be more margaritas, fish, jet skis and perhaps even freedom for these casualties of a cosmic force they are poorly equipped to comprehend.
Loki stars Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Sophia Di Martino, Richard E. Grant, Sasha Lane, and Eugene Cordero. New episodes air Wednesdays on Disney+.
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