How Can Loki “Re-Write” the Story? His New Ability Explained

The penultimate episode of ‘Loki’ Season 2 saw Loki right where he started at the beginning of the season. Following the destruction of Temporal Loom, raw Time was no longer being processed into timelines, and the TVA was on the verge of destruction, with Loki & Sylvie seemingly being the only people in the episode who remember it at all. He was also Time slipping uncontrollably once again, something that he desperately wanted to get rid of in episode 1. Now, the end of episode 5 is fairly straightforward: Loki will attempt to fix everything, and he seems to know the key to doing it. Let’s see how Loki aims to rewrite the story. 

Loki’s Time Slipping at the beginning of the season was never accidental

We’ve seen a lot of characters going into horrific time-related accidents over the course of two seasons of ‘Loki,’ and yet, the God of Mischief is the only one who manages to pull through every time unscathed, albeit with some consequences. Even though he is, according to Sylvie’s words, “Destined to lose” due to being Loki. 

Now, episode 1 of season 2 started with Loki uncontrollably Time Slipping through Time. Being transported through numerous timelines and realities and points in Time seemingly at random. The problem was fixed when Loki was pruned (by himself), and the Time Slipping stopped. 

Now, following what appears to be the complete meltdown of Temporal Loom, the Time Slipping started again, which made for a confusing few minutes of the episode. Loki managed to gain enough sense to locate all of his former friends at the TVA and visit what appears to be their “real life.” Until he eventually met with OB, who explained, in less scientific terms, how his Time Slipping could be beneficial to him. 

It seems that Loki is destined to have some control over Time for some reason and that Time Slipping, in his case, is not some kind of error but it’s an ability that he can use to his own benefit. Something to be utilized to organize the time and place and make sense of it.  

The question was “Who” all along

OB encouraged Loki to look for the answer to the question “why” if he plans on controlling the Time Slipping, and Loki managed to answer it to an extent and realized why he was fighting so hard to save the TVA. He didn’t want to be alone any longer, and he felt like he had a true purpose for the first time in forever. But even answering the underlying question and realizing his purpose didn’t stop the time from collapsing and causing spaghettification of everyone and everything around him. 

Echoing Sylvie’s words, “we are meant to lose,” caused Loki to realize that the question is not why but rather who. “Who” remains a mystery, however, and something we are yet to answer in the final episode. But Loki seemed to figure it out. Maybe “Who” is He Who Remains, maybe it’s Loki himself, or rather Sylvie, as he seems to be a constant in his stories as well. But in any case, Loki gained one of the most powerful abilities in the MCU currently, as he can transport himself all across time at will. 

Loki will re write the story using his newfound ability 

The ending scenes of Episode 5 see Loki back where all this mess started, a few moments prior to the Temporal Loom meltdown. Loki will most likely use his Time Slipping ability to control the narrative and affect the events until he gets the outcome that he wants. 

His first step will most likely include stopping the Temporal Loom meltdown, but exact steps remain to be seen as there are infinite possibilities that can lead to infinite outcomes, and Loki needs to take them all into account. 

In any case, the show seems to be going in the direction of the rumors we’ve covered recently that Loki will replace He Who Remains and take control of the TVA, granting the timelines freedom and true randomness instead of pre-determined fate that each timeline needs to follow to avoid pruning.

MCU Loki seems to follow in his comic counterpart’s footsteps 

In the comics, Loki was always destined to lose as well. One of his purposes was to cause chaos and bring on Ragnarok. In any case, he was mostly on the losing side. 

Following his true death at the hands of the Sentry/Void, he decided to set up one more scheme before he died. He manipulated Hela into removing his name from the Book of the Dead to ensure that he would be reborn again. He wasn’t. Loki was reborn as a completely different Loki, one who had the opportunity to start everything from scratch without his evil inclinations and evil past baggage. 

Loki decided to utilize his powers for good and turn things around. This young Loki had all the powers in the world to write his own story as he saw fit. In the MCU Loki took a drastically different path to get there, but he still got there, turning from a prime Avengers villain into a hero on which the fate of the Multiverse rests. In any case, we’re excited to see Loki’s story going forward. 

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