Why The Ending of LOKI Season 2 Was PERFECT
Loki: “I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.”
This was by far the greatest ending I’ve seen in a Marvel project. This is what I call Marvel at its peak. The episodes kept getting better every week. Loki right now is probably the best-written character in the entire MCU.
The episode opens with Loki time-slipping to the TVA just moments before Victor timely dies. He tries over and over again, but Victor doesn’t survive the radiation. So, he decides to go further back in the past where Obi and Victor timely met for the first time. Notice that even though Loki is now hurrying the whole introduction, Victor timely makes the same noise he made when he originally met Obi in the timeline. Oh wait, wait, wait. This is not a .25 XP breakdown, force of habit anyway, so centuries later, Loki learns everything about mechanics, physics, and engineering from OB.
He even explains to OB and Casey what’s going on instead of the other way around. Victor Timely then successfully docks the throughput multiplier into the temporal loom, and the loom starts to get bigger, integrating all of the branch timelines. Loki thinks he succeeded, but the loom starts to get overloaded again, and timely says his loom will never be able to accommodate the infinitely growing multiverse because he cannot scale infinitely. So, Loki realizes he has to go all the way back and prevent Sylvie from killing He Who Remains because his death was the trigger that caused it all. But here Loki learns that the only way to stop Sylvie from killing He Who Remains is to kill her instead. So, Loki has to sacrifice the woman that he loves in order to save trillions and trillions of lives. And he who remains also tells Loki that there’s no scaling problem with the Loom. The Loom is supposed to do that. It was made to delete branches that were never to be there. So, Loki understands, enlarging the loom will never solve the problem because the loom will only protect the sacred timeline. So, what’s the other option?
Seeking Advice and Making the Ultimate Choice
He has killing Sylvie, which he doesn’t want to do? So, Loki time-slips back to the Time Theater where Mobius was questioning Loki. Loki asks for his help. He asks him, how do you choose who gets to live and who dies? And here Mobius inspires him with a story from his own life and says there is no comfort in life, you just choose your burden. Hearing this, Loki comes back to Sylvie and tells her that in order to save the timeline, he has to kill her. at this point, Loki was kind of ready to kill Sylvie and live the rest of his life with this burden, but he just can’t bring himself to do it. So, he asks Sylvie what should he do? And this is Sylvie’s response. “You’re replacing one nightmare with another. I’ve lived through enough of them to know that sometimes it’s OK to destroy something.” Hearing these two things from Sylvie, Loki realizes he has a third option, which is destroying the loom and replacing it with something better. And that’s exactly what Loki does. He destroys the temporal loom and literally holds the entire multiverse together.
Loki's Sacrifice and Transformation
Now let me explain what exactly happened here and what it means for the future of Loki and the entire multiverse as a whole. As you can see here, when Loki destroyed the temporal loom, the branches died immediately. But as soon as he holds the branches in his hand and enchants it with his powers, the branches come to life again. But once he lets go of it, the branch dies. So, Loki realized that in order to create the branches and ensure the proper flow of time, Loki would always have to hold on to the branches, because if he lets go of it, they die. And the moment Loki opened the portal to the end of time, that’s the moment he made the decisive choice to sacrifice his existence, holding the multiverse together, even if it meant never reuniting with his friends. When Loki was grabbing timelines after timelines, he looked up and saw a chair at the top of this jagged fragment. And when he was going up, notice these gold liquid-like things were also climbing up. Meaning Loki wasn’t only carrying these bundles of timelines, but he was also conjuring gold and turning the stone into a throne. Therefore, replacing he who remains as the rightful custodian of the multiverse.
And notice Loki, crowned with two big horns, has the same marble pattern as the citadel of time. Now although the popular opinion here is that Loki has become the God of Stories, but I’d rather side with Rob from Comics Explained and say this is Loki becoming Atlas in the MCU. Now, Atlas is the Custodian of the multiverse. In the comics, he was tasked with monitoring realities, maintaining their stability, and preventing them from falling into the cosmic abyss, a role perfectly mirrored in Loki’s actions. And unlike the God of Stories, Atlas’s responsibility involves not creating but sustaining and revitalizing timelines, aligning more closely with Loki’s current role. in my opinion, just like Rob said, Loki has essentially become the MCU version of Atlas.
The New Sacred Timeline and Loki's Role as Custodian
And when Loki was walking down the gangway and the radiation consumed his clothes, notice Loki had summoned himself a dark green Cape. Later when Loki was grabbing timelines after timelines, he attached some of them on his shoulders as well.
And here the bundles of branches replace his Cape as the Loki is wearing a Cape made of the multiverse itself, therefore the branches of the multiverse became an integral part of Loki. Also, notice as soon as Loki takes his seat on the throne, the throne shines up even brighter than before, meaning Loki has become so powerful at this point that whatever Loki comes into contact with is now pulsing with an intense surge of energy. And when Loki pulls all of the timelines together, he ends up creating a new sacred timeline resembling a tree with splayed branches on one end and stretching roots on the other. And it’s no surprise that the shape of the tree looks exactly like Yggdrasil, which is what the Asgardians think the multiverse looks like. Yggdrasil in Norse mythology is an enormous ash tree that connects the nine worlds, which we did get a glimpse of in the first Thor movie. Loki weaving all the branches into the world tree. Yggdrasil fits his character perfectly, and I just love how the ending of this episode took references from the first Thor movie. And when Thor sacrifices, his connection with Jane is reminiscent of Loki sacrificing himself to spare Sylvie.
Now, Loki had a lifelong desire for a throne, but the moment he least wanted it, the moment he wanted actual friends and relationships, that’s the moment he got granted the greatest throne of all. And there’s a huge difference between he who remains a sacred timeline and this new sacred timeline because he who remains a sacred timeline only protected one single branch and pruned the rest. Whereas Loki’s sacred timeline is so powerful it can incorporate an infinite amount of branches, and they still remain inside the sacred timeline. And in the final shot, we see Loki with a heartbroken face, with tears almost welling up in his eyes. But notice he could still hear what Mobius said from one of the timelines.
This implies as the custodian of the multiverse, Loki possesses the extreme power to perceive and comprehend events unfolding within it. This elevates Loki to one of the most formidable beings to ever exist in the MCU, whether identified as the God of Time, the God of Stories, or Atlas, whatever.
Fulfilling Glorious Purpose
His new identity might be one thing for sure, and that is Loki fulfilled his glorious purpose. And no purpose is glorious without burden, and Loki is literally burdened with the entire weight of the multiverse on his shoulders.
And as Odin said, only one of you can ascend to the throne. But both of you were born to be kings. They were both born to be kings.
