In 2021, the first season of Loki on Disney+ introduced Marvel Cinematic Universe audiences to the Time Variance Authority. The TVA is an administrative organization that exists outside of time and space. Its purpose is to act as a temporal law enforcement agency, safeguarding the MCU’s “Sacred Timeline” and preventing anything from happening that isn’t fated to happen.
They captured Tom Hiddleston’s Loki after the events of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame when the Avengers traveled back to 2012 New York to collect three Infinity Stones. The 2012 version of Loki, who was previously captured and returned to Asgard after attempting to conquer Earth in The Avengers, inadvertently obtained the Tesseract and used it to escape, attracting the TVA’s attention because that wasn’t supposed to happen in the Sacred Timeline.
Audiences were told He Who Remains – the Kang variant introduced in Loki – created the TVA, but a new theory suggests he might have overthrown a previous incarnation of the organization. It’s pretty convincing, too.
What Triggered This TVA Theory?
In season 2’s sixth episode, “Glorious Purpose,” when Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s former TVA judge Ravonna Renslayer is at the Void – a dark, mysterious place at the end of time where the TVA sends (or “prunes”) unwanted variants of characters – a large metal disc is seen on the floor that creates questions.
The disc has the TVA logo and the organization’s slogan, “For All Time. Always,” on it – the same logo that can be seen on parts of the flooring in the TVA headquarters so often depicted on screen.
For anything to be in the Void, it had to have been sent there (or “pruned”). At no point in the Loki series was any flooring in the TVA pruned. So how did it get there?
So, What Is This Intriguing New Theory About The TVA?
The new theory suggests He Who Remains overthrew the original incarnation of the TVA and pruned it into the Void.
Whether or not the previous incarnation of the organization was led by an alternate version of Kang or a “good” group of individuals is entirely open to debate. Still, the theory insinuates someone was overthrown by the character played by Jonathan Majors in Loki.
It’s likely the reason all TVA workers forget their previous lives. He Who Remains didn’t want them to remember they were initially working for someone else and are now working for a more nefarious individual.
The theory is backed up by a previous quote by He Who Remains suggesting he could rebuild the TVA “again,” which undoubtedly insinuates that he did it once before rather than creating it himself from scratch.
If this theory turns out to be accurate, it would be interesting to learn who or what created the original incarnation of the TVA in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The organization will appear in upcoming projects, including the hotly anticipated Deadpool 3, in which the TVA will become involved with Ryan Reynolds’ eponymous character and Hugh Jackman’s iconic Wolverine, so it’s something MCU fans may discover in the coming months.
One thing’s for sure: the TVA will play a massive part in the MCU in the future, regardless of who’s at the organization’s helm.
The second season of Loki is streaming on Disney+.
