Loki’s complex journey to find true love

“To love is to will the good of the another.” –St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.ii.26

This principle is seen clearly in the redemption arc of Loki, both the original MCU version (hereafter referred to as Prime Loki) and the Variant, who is the eponymous hero of the Loki series.

Loki’s love of his father

In the beginning of the Infinity Saga, Loki is desperate to be loved. His discovery that he is actually the son of Laufey, king of the frost giants of Jotunheim, leads to an existential crisis. Of all Odin’s failures as a father, hiding Loki’s true parentage is the most understandable. However, because he finds out later in his life, Loki now looks back on his entire childhood and young adulthood though that lens. Although, given Odin’s imprisonment of his daughter Hela and banishment of Thor to Midgard, he probably did not love Loki any less than his siblings, Loki sees his otherness as the reason for Odin’s distance. This sets the entire plot of the first Thor in motion.

What initially seems to be Loki embracing his identity as a frost giant and helping Laufey kill Odin is actually an elaborate plot for Loki to prove himself a worthy “son of Odin.” He makes this clear when he kills his own biological father Laufey, saying “And your death came by the son of Odin.” Unfortunately, the second part of his plan is to use the Bifrost like a slow acting Death Star laser. He intends to destroy the planet on which he was born and his entire race as an overdramatic repudiation When Thor asks him why, he openly states “To prove to Father that I am the worthy son!”

Moments later, he yells at Thor, “I never wanted the throne!…I only ever wanted to be your equal!” What Lady Sif, who loves Thor, described as Loki having “always been jealous of Thor” was Loki desiring to be loved by Odin in the same way that he saw Odin love Thor and thinking if he was more like Thor, perhaps Odin would love him more. This is clear when Thor prevents the destruction of Jotunheim by breaking the Bifrost and the newly awoken Odin catches them to keep them from falling into the abyss of space. Loki tells Odin, “I could have done it, Father! I could have done it! For you! For all of us!” Odin responds, “No, Loki.” It is a rejection of Loki’s plan as something Odin would want, but Loki sees it as yet another rejection of him as Odin’s son. So in despair he lets go, falling into the abyss and allowing his father and brother (and the audience) to believe he is dead. Of course, he is not dead, but rather has been given a scepter containing the Mind Stone by a servant of Thanos named The Other, with instructions to acquire the Space Stone for Thanos, in the shape of a cube referred to as the Tesseract, and use it to open a portal that will allow an army of Chitauri aliens to invade Earth, which he will then rule.

Interestingly, although he proudly referred to himself as the “son of Odin” when Thor told him just before their climactic fight on the Bifrost, “I will not fight you, brother” Loki angrily retorts, “I am not your brother! I never was!” When the two meet again in The Avengers, Loki has apparently taken what he saw as a rejection by Odin to heart. When Thor refers to Odin as “our father,” Loki sharply corrects him, “Your father” and calls Thor derisively by the epitaph Odinson, twisting it almost into an insult. When Thor asks him if he remembers their childhood together, Loki answers, “I remember a shadow. Living in the shade of your greatness.” Nevertheless, Loki’s entire plan is still an effort to be Thor’s equal. He can no longer be king of Asgard so he must sets out to rule of Midgard (Earth) In Thor, Loki desperately asks Odin why he took him as a baby from Jotunheim, stating he must have had a purpose. Odin responds that he had hoped Loki would be a means of reconciliation between the peoples of Jotunheim and Asgard. This prompts Loki to yell that he is “just another relic” to be locked away until needed. When Loki arrives on Earth in The Avengers, he famously states that he is “burdened with glorious purpose.” He is also reminded by the Other that Thanos gave him “new purpose.”

Loki’s love of his mother

Thor: The Dark World expands the close relationship between Loki and his mother Frigga that was hinted at in the first film. She is the first to speak to Loki when he enters the throne room as a prisoner. She visits him in the dungeon in which he is imprisoned, albeit as a projection (so as not to countermand Odin’s order that Loki would never see her again). As he did with Thor, Loki even goes so far as to angrily yell at her, “He’s not my father!” in reference to Odin, when Frigga calls him “your father.” And it is Frigga’s death at the hands of Malekith, leader of the Dark Elves, that first sends Loki down his path to redemption.

It is particularly poignant that Loki hides the extent of his grief with illusions, which it is implied Frigga taught him how to conjure. Thor offers Loki the “sacrament” of vengeance, offering to break Loki out of the dungeon if he will take him and Jane Foster through a secret passage to Svartalfheim where he will allow Malekith to remove the Reality Stone, in a fluid form known as the Aether, from Jane, at which point Thor can avenge their mother by killing the Dark Elf and destroy the Aether. After getting into a fight over who is more to blame for the death of their mother, Thor tells him dejectedly “I wish I could trust you” to which Loki responds, “Trust my rage.” Although wrath is a vice and revenge is not a Christian sacrament, it is Loki’s love for his mother that fuels his rage and thus begins his conversion from villain to antihero.

When they encounter Malekith it appears that Loki has fulfilled everyone’s expectations that he will betray Thor even appearing to cut off his brother’s hand. But this is all a ruse to get Malekith to let his guard down. When Thor’s power fails to destroy the Aether, Loki fights with him against the Dark Elves, even nearly getting killed by a grenade when he pushes Jane out of its path. He saves Thor from being beaten to death by the Kursed but appears to be mortally wounded himself in the process. Thinking that Loki is dying in his arms, Thor says, “I will tell Father what you did here” to which Loki, in his ostensible last words, responds, “I didn’t do it for him.”

The emotional impact of this line is arguably somewhat diminished by the revelation at the end that Loki is actually alive and now impersonating Odin upon the throne of Asgard. However, it is highly likely that Loki was actually wounded, just not fatally. He still heroically risked his life to save not only Thor but the woman he loved. Thus, what motivated Loki to become a hero was the love he had for both his brother and his mother.     

If that last line was not enough indication that Loki has appeared to move beyond his need for approval from Odin, how he treats his adoptive father when he replaces him should be. Though, Loki could have killed Odin outright, so perhaps he deserves some credit. Instead, he puts him under a spell and leaves him on Earth, as revealed in Thor: Ragnarok. After his dream-vision, induced by Scarlet Witch in Age of Ultron, alerts him that something is amiss on Asgard and the fire giant Surtur tells him “Odin is not on Asgard”, Thor returns and quickly realizes that Loki is impersonating Odin and forces his brother to take him to where he left their father on Earth, but he is no longer there.

When the brothers arrive in Norway, where Dr. Stephen Strange has told them Odin is, their father refers to them both as “My sons.” He then reveals that he has broken free from Loki’s spell but apparently does not hold it against his adopted son merely commenting “Frigga would have proud” (likely knowing that is something Loki would have wanted to hear). After he informs them that he is dying and his death will remove the restraint on Hela, the goddess of Death, he tells them, “I love you, my sons.” The look on Loki’s face shows that he has likely waited his entire life to hear those words from Odin. Although they are about to fight after Odin’s passing, for which Thor blames Loki, they stand together against Hela when she arrives, until she destroys Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir.

Hela attacks them as they attempt to flee back to Asgard via the Bifrost, which causes both Loki and Thor to crash land on Sakaar albeit weeks apart. Loki denies that Thor is his brother but explains that he has ingratiated himself to the Grandmaster and therefore cannot help him. Nevertheless, he later visits Thor as a projection (as Frigga once visited him). Although, he ends their conversation telling Thor that he placed a large wager against him in the latter’s gladiatorial match the next day, this is only after Thor rejects Loki’s offer to join him in plotting to eventually replace the Grandmaster. Rather, than plotting against Thor, Loki now wants him as part of his plots, and his desire to prevent Thor from escaping to deal with Hela on Asgard seems at least somewhat motivated by genuine concern that Thor will be unable to defeat her. This a step backward from his apparent heroics in The Dark World, but Loki’s affection for Thor prevents him from backsliding into full-on villainy.

As Thor and Loki are breaking into the hangar for the Grandmaster’s ships so they can find one on which Thor, Valkyrie and Bruce Banner can travel back to Asgard, Loki suggests that he is probably better staying on Sakaar and to his surprise, Thor agrees. He says, “It’s savage, chaotic, lawless…Brother, you’re going to do great here.” Slightly hurt, Loki asks, “Do you truly think so little of me?” To which Thor responds, “Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we were gonna fight side by side forever. But at the end of the day, you’re you and I’m me” which visibly upsets Loki.

When they reach the ship, Loki betrays Thor one last time, but Thor has expected it. As Loki is being shocked by the obedience disk that Thor surreptitiously placed on his back, Thor tells his brother, “Life is about…growth. It’s about change. But you seem to just wanna stay the same…you’ll always be the god of mischief, but you could be more.”

These words apparently have a unexpectedly profound effect on Loki. When the gladiators that Valkyrie freed as a distraction find him and invite aboard the ship on which they are escaping, Loki says, “Well, you do appear to be in desperate need of leadership.” However, the first place he takes his followers is back to Asgard, where he joins Thor, Valkyrie and the Hulk in fighting Hela, and is actually the one to begin Ragnarok by placing Surtur’s crown in the Eternal Flame. While doing this in the vaults, Loki hesitates for a second when he sees the Tesseract and it is left ambiguous whether he picks it up. At the end of the film, Thor wonders if Loki is actually aboard the ship with him, and Loki assures his brother that he is physically.

It is revealed in Infinity War that Loki did indeed take the Tesseract. The film opens with the Asgardian refugee ship being attacked and boarded by Thanos and his Children, who are searching for the Tesseract. When Thanos threatens to kill Thor if Loki does not give up the Tesseract, Loki at first responds “Kill away” but when Thanos calls his bluff, Loki hands over the Tesseract in order to save his brother’s life. So Loki goes from a villain who was working with Thanos to acquire the Tesseract in The Avengers to a hero willingly giving up the Tesseract to Thanos to save his brother. Once Thanos breaks the Tesseract and places the Space Stone in his Infinity Gauntlet, Loki could have easily escaped. Instead he offers to serve as Thanos’ guide on Earth in the search for the other two Infinity Stones located there. This is not, as it appears, Loki returning to his old ways of betrayal, though he does try one last trick.

As Loki walks toward Thanos, swearing his “undying fidelity,” he identifies himself for the first time as “Odinson.” After having Odin finally acknowledging him as a son and telling him that he loves him, Loki attempts to kill Thanos with a concealed dagger. A calculating mind like Loki’s must have known that his plan was likely to fail yet he attempts it anyway to save the life of his brother (or at least not let him die alone). Thanos kills him, but he dies a hero.

Although Thanos says “No resurrections this time,” Marvel still found a way to bring Loki back. In Endgame, Thanos uses the Infinity Stones to destroy them in order to prevent someone from undoing the Snap, the Avengers use Ant-Man’s technology to go back in time. The Avengers then use Ant-Man’s technology to travel back in time via the quantum realm and acquire the Stones. Going back to the Battle of New York from The Avengers, they use their knowledge of the future to quickly acquire the Space (Tesseract), Mind (Loki’s Scepter) and Time (Eye of Agamoto) Stones. However, apparently forgetting that he told Hulk to “take the stairs” instead of the elevator, Tony walks directly into the path of the Hulk, who is quite angry at having to walk down so many stairs. The case containing the Tesseract is knocked out of Tony’s hand and opens, allowing the Tesseract to fall out.

Variant Loki’s quest to be a hero

This is noticed only by Loki, who picks up the Tesseract, and is sent by the power of the Space Stone to Mongolia. Shortly afterward, he is apprehended by the agents of the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and taken to their headquarters to stand trial for “crimes against the sacred timeline.” While awaiting his trial for his crimes, he witnesses another prisoner being “pruned.” Loki learns that he is now considered a “variant” a version of an individual who does something that causes his path to diverge from what has been laid out for him or her determined destiny as part of the “Sacred Timeline.” The TVA is responsible for capturing variants and “pruning” not only them but also the entire timeline that “branches” off as the result of the “Nexus Event” that he or she committed.

Loki is spared from being sentenced to be pruned when TVA analyst Mobius M. Mobius requests that he be allowed to work with Loki to find another Loki variant who is hopping through time and killing TVA Minutemen. Before doing this, however, Mobius shows Loki his file, detailing all the events that Prime Loki went through in the Sacred Timeline: how his life was supposed to turn out. Viewing it from the outside, Loki becomes determined to not repeat his mistakes and is placed on the path to redemption.

Mobius informs Loki that the variant for whom they are hunting is another Loki. Loki initially is eager to capture this new variant simply to prove that he is the “superior Loki.” However, it is revealed that this Loki is female and goes by the name Sylvie, instead of Loki. She quickly proves herself to be more than a match for Loki. When she makes her escape, Loki disobeys Mobius’ order and pursues her. As a result, Loki and Sylvie trapped on a moon named Lamentis that is doomed to be destroyed when a large planet collides with it. Initially, despite his belief in his superiority, Loki developed a grudging respect for Sylvie. As they try to find a way off Lamentis and learn about each other’s past, Loki and Sylvie develop a real connection with and affection for each other.

Their connection is strong enough that it creates a Nexus Event, allowing the TVA to find and apprehend them. They are then separated and Mobius comes to interrogate Loki. When Loki tries to bluff by telling Mobius that Sylvie was merely a “means to an end” Mobius tells him that she was already pruned. Loki is visibly stricken and although he tries to play it off, even saying “good riddance” Mobius calls him on his bluff and mocks Loki for being so narcissistic that he fell in love with a version of himself. Loki reacts angrily and only wants to know if Sylvie is alive or not, realizing that he got a rise out of Loki, confirms that she is alive “for now.”

Loki reveals to Mobius that everyone who works for the TVA is a variant, but Mobius still puts him in a “time prison” right after accusing Loki of being a “bad friend.” The prison is a time loop where Lady Sif repeatedly strikes him and tells he deserves to be alone and always will be cutting off her hair (In Norse myth, Loki cut Sif’s golden hair but replaced it with golden hair fashioned by dwarves. In the comics, the hair turned black, which is Sif is not blonde.) When Mobius realizes that Loki was telling the truth, he comes to retrieve the god of mischief from his “time prison.” Mobius delivers a speech where he tells Loki, “You can be whatever you want to be, even someone good.” Despite his attempt to hide his need for validation from Mobius, the look on Loki’s face when he hears these words shows how badly he needed them. Like Loki Prime with Thor, part of Loki’s heroics are motivated by his platonic adelphos love for a brotherly figure. This further confirmed moments later when Mobius and Loki emerge from the time prison and immediately confronted by Renslayer and a squad of Minutemen. Mobius bravely tells her that he knows he is a variant, and they have been lying to him, and is promptly pruned at her order. The lack of devastation on Loki’s face as he witnesses what he believes to be the death of his first real friend and his expression of utter defeat as he is led to meet the Timekeepers shows how close he had become to Mobius.

At the end of episode, Loki himself is pruned. In the next episode, it is revealed that pruning does not actually the one who is pruned, but sends him to the Void at the end of time, which is inhabited by a sentient cloud creature called Alioth, which consumes everything it touches. When Loki arrives in the Void, he encounters a number of other variants including “Classic” Loki. Classic Loki’s Nexus Event was casting an illusion to attack Thanos instead of doing so himself, which allowed him to escape and survive. Sylvie “self-prunes” and enters the Void as well, where Mobius finds her. They reunite with Loki, and when Sylvie explains her theory that Alioth is a guard dog and she plans to enchant it to whom it is guarding.

Loki states that he is staying with her. Sylvie admits that she does not know whether her plan will even work, but Loki is undeterred. When Loki says goodbye to Mobius, instead of merely shaking his hand, Loki hugs him and refers to Mobius as “my friend.” Classic Loki, who had left Loki and Sylvie, returns just in time to save them by casting an actual size illusion of Asgard, which Alioth moves to consume. Sadly, he is unable to hold the illusion forever and when it collapses Alioth moves to consume, with his last words being a callback to Loki’s introduction in The Avengers: “Glorious purpose!” Even this variant of Loki has found his true “glorious purpose” in heroically sacrificing himself for others.

Classic Loki’s sacrifice allows Loki and Sylvie time to successfully enchant Alioth and enter the Citadel at the End of Time. First, they encounter Miss Minutes, who is serving as an emissary of He Who Remains, the mastermind behind the entire TVA.  She not only offers Loki and Sylvie the chance to exist in the same timeline, but specifically tempts Loki with the Infinity Gauntlet, the ability to kill Thanos and the throne of Asgard (with the implication that he can use the Infinity Stones to restore Asgard). It is important to recall that in this timeline, Loki has not gone through the events of the Dark World, Ragnarok, and Infinity War. In the first episode he responded to Mobius asking if he wanted to be king with, “I don’t want to be, I was born to be.” Loki’s viewing of his file in the Time Theatre jumpstarted his path to heroism a little bit, but he still only recently believed he was born to be king.

Nevertheless, Loki refuses and he and Sylvie and finally come to face to face with He Who Remains, who now offers Loki and Sylvie control of the TVA. He also explains that he himself has been managing the Sacred Timeline and if they kill him, as Sylvie intends to do, then the Sacred Timeline will branch off into a chaotic multiverse. Loki thinks it wise to consider what He Who Remains is telling them but Sylvie is blinded by her desire for vengeance against the person who took her from her home, causing her to run from one apocalypse to another in order to hide. Sylvie and Loki then engage in an intense but brief fight. At one point, Sylvie spits angrily at Loki, “Kill me! Take your throne” since she believes that Loki wants what He Who Remains is offering.

Loki willing the good of another

The fight ends with Loki teleport directly in front of Sylvie as she goes in for a killing blow, and he ends up with her sword at his neck as he drops his own. His words to her are deliberately reminiscent of his words to his brother before their climactic fight in the first Thor film: “I never wanted the throne! All I ever wanted was to be your equal.” To Sylvie, he says, “I don’t want a throne.” Though similar, the difference between the verb tenses is important. In Thor, Loki was speaking in past tense: He did want the throne before but now he is going to take it so he can prove that he is not only Thor’s equal, but his better. Here, just days (in his perception) after his defeat by the Avengers, he says that currently does not a throne.

Considering that the show has made it clear that he is in love with Sylvie, one might except the next line to be, “I just want you” or something similar. Rather, Loki says to her, “I just want you to be okay.” This as close to a statement of true love, as Aquinas would define, as one is going to hear in mainstream entertainment. In Infinity War, Loki dies as a hero as he attempts to take out Thanos, but the entire arc leading to that “glorious purpose” has been Loki attempting to prove that he is worthy of love, whether it is his father’s, mother’s or brother’s. Now, Loki himself shows that he is motivated by the romantic eros love that he feels for Sylvie and his actions to this point have been motivated by his desire of the good for his beloved.