Loki season 2 just ended and I am still at a loss for words, anything that I could have imagined has been surpassed and yet I was right in predicting Loki's fate as the God of Stories, I just couldn't imagine how truly 'Glorious' it would be.
If Loki Episode 5 was the overcoming of loss, then this episode is the painful process of realizing your new purpose that follows right after.
Overcoming your shortcomings is often the point at which the story takes a turn and then the protagonist has a triumphant victory over the antagonist, but that's not how it works, even after you have learnt how to overcome your losses and shortcomings, you still have to master this process.
And so that is what this episode goes through, and as always it was all part of He who remains plan, the bastard.
Seems like my man was really bored/tired. Because it is revealed that he could have saved himself at any point throughout the entire tirade that was Sylvie trying to kill him.
There are so many reasons I love this, firstly because this genuinely puts He Who Remains in a grey Area, he was ready to give up his power, meaning he truly did resent it, so maybe there is truth to the his statement that this was the only way, but also makes one wonder, was it? Cause at the end of the day, he is human, and has his own biases so maybe this was the only "reasonable" way, as far as he could see.
And even if it is, who's he to say that the inhabitants of the universe cannot die trying or maybe work together to find something new(anyone else thinking of fire-god Liu Kang? I certainly am.)
And the second reason I love this is because... what if this is also all part of his plan? An infinite amount of him are already there, and if they start another multiversal war, will he inevitably end up there anyways? I mean the MCU is rumored to be planning a soft reboot post Secret Wars, please tell me Kang isn't just going to create another sacred timeline, that would really go against the theme of this show, but who knows.
It's like Janet said.
And I so love that this is essentially Loki: Endgame, just like in that movie, the avengers went back in time to revisit different moments in the story so far, (in universe to gather the infinity stones, in reality to give the audience an excuse to revisit these moments in time) Loki revisits different points in time to get advice from his friends as to what he should do.
In between He who remains and Loki, Loki is the better god, because he didn't by himself decide what could be the best for everyone, he brought together people who cared, and gave them a fighting chance.
But maybe I am judging too fast, because Kang did seem very confident that things will end up the way they were eventually, I don't know...
What I do know is this episode has parallels to Norse Mythology, more so than ooh look Yggdrasil!
Yggdrasil is the world tree for those who do not know, it, but the more important connection is that of Mimir, the God of wisdom and stories, who's head is literally at the well from which the world Tree Yggdrasil springs forth.
And Yggdrasil in its own right represents a cycle as the tree springs from the well, and then the water drops from the leaves fill the well back refilling it and continuing the cycle.
At Ragnarok the tree is destroyed and then is regrown from the remains just like in this case, from the multiverse, the infinite Kang variants will rise, start a war to end all wars(like Ragnarok) and then the tree will be cut down, preserving only one timeline once again, at least that seems to be the implied cycle here.
Hopefully however this time the cycle will not repeat because... Well in my view the cycle would be a little different each time and since this is the cycle we are seeing Marvel obviously wouldn't like for us to see the same thing repeat again and again, that just would be bad story telling, without evolution a good story is hard to tell.
So far this has been one of the best projects that Marvel has released, and the irony that it came the same week as whst can be considered the worst entry in the marvel Saga till now isn't lost on me.