Anything associated with the Marvel Cinematic Universe is inevitably going to lead to a thousand lines of inquiry from fans desperate to uncover as many references and Easter Eggs as possible, and looking at the first two episodes of Loki, the God of Mischief’s solo series is poised to generate just as much speculation as WandaVision, which is no easy feat.
We’re a third of the way through, and the various subplots in motion have already left many viewers confused, but now that the Sacred Timeline has been thrown into chaos by the rogue variant, things are only going to get more complicated. The interactions between Owen Wilson’s Mobius and Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer have given off the distinct impression that the latter either knows much more than she’s letting on, or she’s hiding something, and a new theory puts forward the idea that the mysterious Time-Keepers don’t exist at all.
As per the theory, the dismissive nature of Judge Renslayer brushing off Mobius’ questions about the folks in charge of the TVA could be construed as deliberately evasive, especially when it’s intimated that the majority of the organization’s employees have never even seen them before. Not only that, but in the comic books, Renslayer’s history is tied to that of Kang the Conqueror, who’s expected to make his MCU debut in the form of Jonathan Majors as part of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
While it might be a little too reminiscent of WandaVision‘s Agatha Harkness twist if Renslayer has been in the employ of villainy all along, the two shows are different enough that it would still work. The Time-Keepers may have been real at one point, but Loki could yet reveal that they haven’t been around for a long time, and it’s all part of a ploy to control the Sacred Timeline.