FULL SPOILERS AHEAD

A question I keep thinking about while watching episodes of Loki is, how much of what we see and hear can we trust? Loki is the God of Mischief and Lies, a trickster at heart. Throw in the mysterious Variant–we’ll get to her, don’t worry–and I just start assuming every other thing they say is at best a half-truth. Can either be trusted? Absolutely not, but I’m going to do my best to figure out what’s true and what’s not. One thing is certain, though: this is a very purple episode.

The third episode, “Lamentis,” follows right after the last episode with the Variant teleporting into the TVA headquarters as its agents scramble to fix the various time disasters she set up. Loki follows, and the two are very antagonistic to each other. They get caught by Ravonna but manage to escape when Loki uses the Variant’s stolen teleportation pad. Unfortunately they find themselves on Lamentis-1 in 2077, a very purple planet and the scene of another apocalypse. A planet is going to crash into the moon they’re on, which extra sucks since the teleporter is out of juice. The Variant seemingly confirms that she was a Loki, but she goes by Sylvie now. Put a pin in that. Anyway, the duo find out there’s an ark that the rich are heading towards as a way off the moon. They sneak aboard a train heading that way, and discuss their lives a bit, implying both are some flavor of bisexual (happy Pride Month!). We know Loki’s backstory, but Sylvie says she doesn’t remember her mother, was actually told at some point that she was adopted, and taught herself enchanting magic. Sylvie takes a nap–put another pin in that–and awakens to security guards suspicious of the pair. A fight breaks out and Loki is tossed off the train, with Sylvie jumping after him since he has the teleporter. Too bad it’s broken, and history says the ark won’t work! But that was without them, so the head towards the ark just in case. It’s around that time that Sylvie reveals that the TVA agents weren’t created by the Time-Keepers, but were normal people before they too became variants. At the city with the ark, a riot breaks out as the poor find it absolutely bullshit that the rich don’t give a damn about everyone else, which is exacerbated by planet chunks falling down. But the ark is destroyed, dashing all hopes the duo have of getting out of this mess.

Lamentis is a planet from the comics, but it’s nothing important. Now, I’m willing to trust that the Variant on the show is in fact a female Loki who changed her name to Sylvie, but just in case, let me go over Sylvie Lushton. She first appeared in Dark Reign: Young Avengers #1 (2009). The “Dark Reign” event was a weird time for Marvel: long story short, Norman Osborn (AKA the Green Goblin) was put in charge of SHIELD and he created a team readers called the Dark Avengers. That’s not really Spider-Man–that’s Venom; that’s not Hawkeye–that’s Bullseye; that’s not Wolverine–that’s his son, Daken; and so forth. This bled over into the Young Avengers, who were very surprised to find a group of new people calling themselves “Young Avengers.” Turns out most of them were too unhinged to become real Young Avengers–one was a neo-Nazi–so they ended up becoming known as the Young Masters, named after the Masters of Evil. Sylvie was Enchantress–again, not the Asgardian one–who had enchantment powers, but it turns out she was given them by Loki (who was Lady Loki at the time). Or perhaps Sylvie was created entirely by Loki? It’s been left vague. The fact that Sylvie in the comics is associated with the Young Avengers is especially interesting since the other Disney+ MCU shows seem to be building to that team: WandaVision gave us Billy and Tommy Maximoff (Wiccan and Speed), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier gave us Eli Bradley (Patriot), and Hawkeye will give us Kate Bishop (Hawkeye). Could be a coincidence–especially since Sylvie/Enchantress never actually joined the team–but you know who did for a while? Kid Loki. It’s a long shot, but you never know!

You know what? I got time, so let’s talk about Sylvie’s broken horn and Kid Loki. The aesthetic of Loki can often be summed up as “green with curved horns,” and Sylvie matches that with a horned tiara/headband, only one of her horns is broken. Well, that’s a reference to the series Loki: Agent of Asgard. Ready for some convoluted bullshit involving multiple Lokis? Okay! The adult Loki originally in the comics was more of a God of Evil, so no one was really sad when he–technically she as this was the Lady Loki incarnation–died in Siege #4 (2010). Loki was reborn as a (male) child without full memories in Thor #617 (2010), so he wasn’t evil. No, that distinction went to the spirit of the previous Loki, who Kid Loki turned into a magpie and named Ikol. Through a very elaborate scheme, Ikol would take over Kid Loki’s body in Journey into Mystery #645 (2012), but guilt would nag at him, even as he got aged up into a young adult. So this new Loki tried to be a good person, leading to Agent of Asgard where he went on secret missions on behalf of the All-Mother–a trinity of Freyja, Gaea, and Idunn–in order to erase his misdeeds and free himself from the “role” of being evil. But another evil Loki, claiming to be the current Loki’s future incarnation, was working with the All-Mother to prevent Asgard’s history from changing. Anyway, the broken horn comes from a fight in Loki: Agent of Asgard #10 (2015) when Loki told Odinson (Thor was unworthy of Mjolnir at the time) the truth, and he… did not take it well. Could this tie into Sylvie’s history? She sure seems like she has a dark past, so maybe her Thor is the reason one of her horns is broken.

I’ve had a fairly decent track record with my predictions so far with this show. In the first episode I suggested the Variant may be a female Loki–a lot of people were guessing that, though–and last time I even mentioned Sylvie–although people were suggesting that since her name was listed in one of the non-English credits. Let’s see if I can keep that up with a pretty bold idea: Lamentis is a lie. Well, maybe not the whole thing, but still. My theory is that when Sylvie wakes up from her nap, everything that happens afterwards is an elaborate illusion Loki has crafted in order to find out what Sylvie’s plan actually is. The means the teleporter isn’t actually broken, just part of the scheme. My proof? Nothing concrete, but there is one thing that made me raise an eyebrow: when trying to reach the ark, a building nearly falls on the duo, but Loki somehow pushes it back into place. So that’s the balancing act in my mind–is Loki capable of creating an illusion so big and real that Sylvie has no idea she’s a part of it, or does Loki have telekinesis strong enough to stop a building from falling on him. It’s a gamble, but I’ve got an imaginary dollar placed that I’m right. We’ll see next time, I suppose!

Previous: The Variant
Next: The Nexus Event

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