The identity of the rogue variant wreaking havoc on the Sacred Timeline was finally revealed at the end of Loki‘s second episode, with Sophia Di Martino confirmed to be playing a female version of the trickster. Or is she?
It didn’t take long for fans to discover that it might be a red herring, after the actress was listed in the credits as “Sylvie”, with further digging by online sleuths uncovering on the show’s IMDb page that an actress has also been cast as “Young Sylvie”. If that wasn’t enough, an Easter Egg in Episode 2 saw Tom Hiddleston’s hero encounter a Variant Incident Report for an Unauthorized Timeline Alteration in 1908, which sounds fairly innocuous in itself.
However, the culprit is named as one Sylvie Laufeydottir, which is hardly a subtle connection to Asgard’s Loki Laufeyson, while in the comic books Sylvie Lushton was given powers by the God of Mischief and became the second iteration of Enchantress. It’s generated plenty of speculation, but some merchandise may have just gone ahead and given the entire game away, as you can see below.
Tie-in merch has to be the bane of existence for major studios and franchises, with toys and other paraphernalia regularly giving away huge spoilers months ahead of time, as we saw repeatedly with Godzilla vs. Kong and latterly the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s own The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Of course, Loki‘s Sylvie reveal might not be tied to her established history or the TVA report at all, but history has shown that many plot and character details given away by merchandise reveals turn out to be right on the money more often than not.