The Loki Season 2 finale shook things up across the MCU in a big way, and Tom Hiddleston’s God of Mischief might have just landed himself a new job title to boot.
Warning – The rest of this article contains spoilers for Loki Season 2, Episode 6.
When the credits rolled on Episode 6, Loki had found himself in a totally new position, at least as far as the MCU is concerned. Fans of the comics, however, might have noticed an interesting parallel between Loki’s new role as a replacement for He Who Remains and one of the character’s most iconic comic arcs.
Loki Has Become the “God of Stories”
The MCU’s resident trickster has become something more, and the storyline has come to follow the broader strokes of the iconic “God of Stories” arcs from the comics.
In the season finale, Loki destroyed the Sacred Timeline to invalidate He Who Remains’ failsafe. This allowed the branches to all coexist in a conjoined multiverse, with Loki at the center and binding everything together in a new Yggdrassil-style tree of time.
Comic fans could note the similarities to the comic book storyline. There, Loki found himself outside of the Multiverse entirely, and—following its destruction and rebirth—became the God of Stories to preserve the tales of those who’d lived before.
One could see the end of the Sacred Timeline as a similar rebirth, and the TVA has always been regarded as existing outside of normal time. From his new seat at the center of the tree of time, Loki is acting as the MCU’s God of Stories; he’s preserving the branches so that every choice matters. Burdened with glorious purpose. A fitting end for the Asgardian God.
The God Stories Preserves True Free Will
A major theme in Loki has been the pursuit of free will. While the finale saw Loki make a sacrifice to take up his new role, it was a sacrifice he chose to make rather than one he was written into by the Timekeepers or He Who Remains.
In many ways, that choice can be seen as Loki’s ultimate gift to Sylvie. She’s no longer defined by her relation to what the “main” Loki would do. Her choices, as well as everyone else’s, will have equal weight and equal ability to blossom into an infinite array of possibilities.
Loki’s selfless act has given the entire Multiverse more choice and consequence than they’d ever known in the previous age and, so long as the God of Stories is there to protect them, their legacies will be theirs to decide.
All six episodes of Loki Season 2 are now available to stream on Disney+.
