With the premiere of Marvel's "Loki" series less than a week away, I think it's time for me to finally dust off my book of speculations on the God of Mischief. I'm not familiar enough with the comics to weigh in on anything involving the Time Variance Authority, Mobius M. Mobius, or anything else from the source material that will appear in the series, but I have seen Avengers: Infinity War more times than I can count, and I still have a lot of unanswered questions about Loki's role in that film. As a writer myself, I see the "Loki" series as a prime opportunity for Marvel to finally answer those questions.
I've discussed this scene numerous times on my blog, and I've only grown more suspicious of it over the years. The lack of cutaway shots to Loki throughout the Hulk's fight with Thanos, the way Loki seems to emerge out of nowhere with a totally different demeanor after the fight, his extremely telegraphed and underwhelming attempt to kill Thanos -- it all adds up to a scene that simply doesn't add up at face value. I used to think that Loki faked his death, and that he'd spent his few minutes offscreen during the fight putting together some elaborate scheme that the filmmakers deliberately weren't showing us. Now that I've seen Avengers: Endgame and the trailers for the "Loki" series, I have a new theory:
The Loki who tackles Thor out of the Hulk's way and the Loki who tries to kill Thanos are not the same Loki. The Loki who tries to kill Thanos is actually the alternate timeline Loki who will star in the "Loki" series.
This new timeline will be the focus of the "Loki" series. What's more, the previews for the series suggest that this "New Loki" is going to do a lot of his own time-hopping on behalf of a possibly shady organization called the Time Variance Authority, or TVA. I say "possibly shady" because the purpose of Loki's time travel mission seems to be to alter key historical events that will drastically change the present. Knowing Loki though, it could instead turn out that the TVA means well and the God of Mischief just decides to deviate from his mission and change history for his own personal gain. That is why we love him, after all.
Bottom line, my theory is that New Loki will eventually realize that his meddling has caused some catastrophic ripple effect across multiple worlds, maybe even across the whole universe, and his conscience will finally get the better of him. His efforts to undo the damage he's caused could even be what the entire second half of the series focuses on. After several attempts to make things right again, New Loki will realize that the ripple effect has grown beyond his ability to repair it, and he'll then realize a solution: to convince the original Loki, who perhaps has more knowledge and wisdom due to his different life experiences, to take over the mission while New Loki ends his own alternate timeline.
In my opinion, Loki's scene in Infinity War will make so much more sense with this context. We don't see Loki during the Hulk's fight with Thanos because New Loki appeared and pulled him aside to brief him on another cosmic crisis, and the reason the Loki we see afterwards fails to kill Thanos is because he intends to fail. Because that Loki is New Loki who knows he needs to die in order to restore balance to the space-time continuum and cover the tracks of the original Loki who's leaving to resume the mission. This way, the fans who thought Loki died in Infinity War and the fans who didn't will both be right.
The series could even do something really heartfelt with this twist, having Loki reflect on his whole character arc by having a heart-to-heart with another version of himself. New Loki (who hasn't seen Thor since their fight in the first Avengers film) could see from the original Loki that he always had the capacity to make peace with his brother and his enemies on Earth, and the original Loki could see from New Loki that he's right to keep moving away from his old selfish ambitions and that he has the power to make a difference in the universe. There could even be a clever little payoff where New Loki tells the original Loki about some sort of MacGuffin from earlier in the series that will benefit the original Loki in some way. There's apparently going to be a scene in the series where we learn that the famous missing criminal D.B. Cooper was actually New Loki in disguise; perhaps telling his original self the location of a certain bag full of money would be a nice way to thank him for taking over the mission?
This is all just speculation of course. For all we know, the "Loki" series could kill this theory in the first five minutes and then conclude with Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson ad-libbing in a diner like the end of Pineapple Express. As always though, theories like this are a good way to practice plot and character development when you're involved in the creative field. My guess of where the "Loki" series will go could be way off, but when the time comes to start writing my next novel or fanfiction, I might be just a little better at managing the mischief I've created in my own new universe.
