Who Is the “God of Stories” Loki & What Are His Powers?

When it comes to Loki, the one thing that has always been associated with him is mischief because he was known as the God of Mischief during his time in Asgard. However, Loki underwent a massive transformational journey in both the comics and the MCU, as the Loki that we know now in both forms of literature is far from the Loki we were familiar with when he first appeared. In the comics, he became the God of Stories, thus departing from his original nature as the God of Mischief. But who exactly is “God of Stories” Loki?

The transformation of a trickster to a storyteller

In the comics and the MCU, Loki was introduced as a trickster god who relished in mischievous acts. Known as the God of Mischief, Loki did evil things and was not shy about being selfish enough to achieve his goals. And this was one of the biggest themes about the character for decades.

Nevertheless, in 2010, Loki died for real in the world of Marvel Comics. There was no going back for him because he actually died, even though the world of comics rarely has a permanent death. Still, because the MCU version of Loki became a charismatic character that fans all over the world love, Marvel Comics decided to take advantage of that popularity.

Years later, Loki was reintroduced as a new Loki who navigated his way through the past Loki’s crimes and what he could do for himself in the future in relation to what he knows about what the past Loki did. This Loki had all the earmarks that made the MCU Loki so popular. He was handsome, charming, and very charismatic.

However, the problem with this new Loki was that he struggled with the perception that people had of his previous version, as they were all convinced that this new Loki was still just the same as the old one. 

So, what this new Loki did was that he defied his fate. He decided that he didn’t want to end up becoming like the old Loki, and that was why he went on to rewrite his life’s story so that he could create his own path instead of following the path that the old versions of Loki followed.

This new version of Loki obtained the ability to move across the multiverse and even “freeze” time, becoming a character who could affect the trajectory of different events found in different timelines. His power to change history and affect different stories was so great that he could even threaten Those Who Sit Above in Shadow, gods who are said to be more powerful than the Asgardians. Realizing that he could now rewrite and tell stories, Loki rechristened himself as the God of Stories, thus throwing away his identity as the God of Mischief.

The best part about this version of Loki was that he was able to actually turn different stories into tales that are deeply rooted in the fact that the Marvel Comics version of Thor and the Asgardians is based on Norse mythology. In real life, we know that our understanding of the Norse gods comes from stories that were written and told over hundreds or even thousands of years.

So, in Loki’s case, he became the very medium for the stories of the Asgardians in the world of Marvel Comics as he could now tell, rewrite, and affect the outcome of different stories in the vast multiverse of Marvel Comics. In a way, he was given the ability to determine his story and even affect the stories of different characters by understanding that his destiny did not define his fate.

MCU Loki can now “rewrite the story”

The MCU series entitled ‘Loki’ has allowed us to see Loki changing into an entirely different person. We know that Loki was able to change his destiny in ‘Avengers: Endgame’ when he escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. after acquiring the Tesseract when the Avengers messed up their original plan of taking the Tesseract back to their timeline. In that regard, this Loki became a variant because he went against the original course of Loki’s storyline. The TVA took this Loki because he was never meant to escape S.H.I.E.L.D.

Over at the TVA, Mobius M. Mobius allowed Loki to see his actual fate in the Sacred Timeline. No matter what he did, he was destined to die at the hands of Thanos. Mobius also allowed Loki to see the crimes he committed in his life so that he would understand that returning to his old life would only lead to his eventual death.

To that end, Loki decided to work for the TVA to help them fix the problems associated with the Sacred Timeline. In season 2 of ‘Loki,’ Loki eventually obtained the ability to time skip after the death of He Who Remains at the end of season 1. Time skipping allowed Loki to move through different timelines in noncontrollable. However, he found a solution to this problem in episode 1 of season 2.

Then, in episode 5 of season 2, the Temporal Loom destroyed the TVA, leaving Loki as the sole survivor. However, Loki’s time skipping returned as he started skipping to different timelines and branches formed from the Sacred Timeline. This led him to AD Doug, who was a variant of Ouroboros. AD Doug’s understanding of physics and science fiction had Loki thinking that time skipping could be the solution to his problem as he could simply skip back to the point in time before the Temporal Loom destroyed the TVA.

AD Doug told Loki that time skipping could be resolved by understanding the “what,” “how,” and “why” of this ability. As such, he decided to bring in all of his friends from their respective timelines back to AD Doug’s lab to try to find a way to control his powers. While that didn’t work as the Temporal Loom started destroying all of the timelines, Loki was able to skip back in time, thus understanding how his time skipping works.

Loki told AD Doug that time skipping was more of a matter of understanding the “who” because he realized that focusing on certain people was what allowed him to use his power to skip to the location of the person he focused on. And he was finally able to do it as he told AD Doug that he could now “rewrite the story’ before he time skipped back to the point before the TVA was destroyed.

The Loki that we know in the MCU is now different from the standard Loki who died at the hands of Thanos. After all, this Loki is a variant who was able to change his ways from being the God of Mischief to a person who wanted to keep his friends safe. And now that he has obtained the power to freely move from one timeline to another, he can now rewrite stories.

This means that MCU Loki can now rebrand himself as the God of Stories, as the MCU is somewhat steering the character’s direction to the same destination that the Marvel Comics version found himself in. It would be interesting to see how the MCU’s version of the God of Stories would use his powers to rewrite the story of the events of the MCU.

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