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Is your brain frazzled by the multiverse? Don't know your Asgard from your elbow? Fear not — here's everything you need to know before Loki returns to Disney+.
Is your brain frazzled by the multiverse? Don't know your Asgard from your elbow? Fear not — here's everything you need to know before Loki returns to Disney+.
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00:00 Is your brain frazzled by the multiverse?
00:03 Don't know your Asgard from your elbow?
00:05 Fear not!
00:06 Here's everything you need to know before Loki returns to Disney+.
00:11 In the MCU, Norse mythology was inspired by a race of cosmic beings from the realm of
00:16 Asgard, who visited Scandinavia millennia ago.
00:19 The king of Asgard is Odin, who raised his sons Thor and Loki with his wife Frigga.
00:25 Though Thor is the biological offspring of Odin and Frigga, Loki is secretly adopted,
00:30 with the truth behind his parentage kept secret even to him.
00:33 In 965 A.D., Odin fought a bloody war against the Frost Giants of Jotunheim, which ended
00:39 with Odin defeating their king, Laufey.
00:42 Before leaving Jotunheim, Odin took in the infant Loki to raise as his own son, and Loki
00:47 subsequently developed an Asgardian appearance.
00:50 Prone to trickery and deception, Loki grew up to become Asgard's god of mischief.
00:55 Over time, however, Loki began to resent his brother for his favor with Odin, and his position
01:00 as heir to the throne.
01:02 To disrupt Thor's planned coronation, Loki arranges for the Frost Giants to raid Asgard
01:08 in an attempt to reclaim the source of their power, the Cascade of Ancient Winters.
01:12 Odin banishes Thor to Earth after he disobeys his orders and attacks Jotunheim in retaliation,
01:17 while Loki discovers his Frost Giant heritage.
01:20 "You took me for a purpose.
01:23 What was it?
01:26 Tell me!"
01:29 The stress of his argument with Loki causes Odin to fall into Odin's sleep, leading Loki
01:34 to take the throne of Asgard.
01:36 On Earth, Thor learns humility and proves himself worthy of wielding the divine power
01:40 his father gifted him.
01:42 Reuniting with his Asgardian friends, Thor learns of Loki's deception and returns home.
01:48 Before confronting his brother, Loki halts the very assassination attempt on Odin he
01:52 himself orchestrated with the Frost Giants, killing his biological father Laufey in the
01:56 process.
01:57 With his bid to position himself as the savior of Asgard unsuccessful and his treachery exposed,
02:03 Loki is defeated by Thor in a bitter duel.
02:05 Rather than accept his brother's mercy, however, Loki opts to fall from Asgard into the vast,
02:10 empty depths of space.
02:13 After fleeing from Asgard, Loki meets Thanos, a mad warlord with a vast army.
02:19 Thanos is scouring the cosmos for the Infinity Stones, which will give him the power to wipe
02:23 out half of all life in the universe.
02:26 Loki convinces Thanos to entrust him with the Mind Stone and recover the Space Stone,
02:31 which is kept inside an Earth-bound relic known as the Tesseract.
02:34 Loki then attacks a SHIELD facility and obtains the Tesseract, using it to open a portal on
02:39 Earth for an invading detachment of Thanos' army.
02:42 Meanwhile, an assembled group of heroes put aside their differences to face Loki together.
02:47 Dubbing themselves the Avengers, the heroes repel Thanos' army, seal the portal, and unknowingly
02:52 reclaim the Mind and Space Stones.
02:55 Loki is captured after a sound beating by the Hulk.
02:58 With custody of both the Tesseract and the god of mischief relinquished to Thor,
03:02 "If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now."
03:10 For all his transgressions, Odin has Loki imprisoned deep within the dungeons of Asgard.
03:15 This punishment is meted out just before Dark Elves resurface to seek revenge on Asgard
03:21 for a devastating defeat they endured from Odin's father, Bor, millennia ago.
03:25 The Dark Elves infiltrate Asgard to obtain the Reality Stone, another Infinity Stone
03:30 recently discovered by Thor's lover, Jane Foster.
03:33 Taking advantage of the chaos, Loki assists the Dark Elves from his cell, inadvertently
03:38 helping cause the death of his adoptive mother, Frigga.
03:41 Respondent, Loki agrees to help Thor reach Svartalfheim, the hidden realm of the Dark
03:46 Elves, in exchange for revenge for the death of Frigga.
03:49 In the ensuing confrontation with the Dark Elf leader, Malekith, Loki is apparently killed
03:53 by Malekith's enforcer, Algrim.
03:56 Fans of Asgardian theater will remember how this went down.
04:02 When news of Loki's death reaches Odin, the king privately leaves for Svartalfheim to
04:07 see for himself.
04:08 In truth, though, Loki has faked his death.
04:11 He secretly sends Odin away to Earth before impersonating his father and taking the throne.
04:17 Loki's royal ruse is exposed by Thor after he defeats the fire giant, Surtur.
04:22 Loki agrees to help Thor bring Odin back to Asgard, only for their father to peacefully
04:26 die in Norway before their eyes.
04:29 Odin's death releases his exiled secret daughter, Hela, goddess of death, who immediately sets
04:35 her sights on Asgard.
04:36 Hela easily crushes the Asgardian military and seizes the throne, while Loki and Thor
04:41 are cast away to the garbage planet of Sakaar.
04:45 Although Loki successfully ingratiates himself with Sakaar's ruler, the Grandmaster, Thor
04:49 convinces his brother that they need to liberate Asgard from Hela.
04:52 Teaming up with the Hulk and an Asgardian Valkyrie who helped defeat Hela eons ago,
04:57 Thor and Loki return to Asgard.
04:59 The so-called "Revengers" evacuate the populace and revive Surtur to annihilate Asgard in
05:05 the hopes of taking Hela down with it.
05:16 After Hela's death and Asgard's destruction, the Asgardians set sail for Earth.
05:20 Meanwhile, Thor and Loki privately reconcile and prepare to lead their people together
05:25 into an uncertain future.
05:27 But then, their plans get totally crushed.
05:31 Thor and Loki's plans are quickly derailed when Thanos attacks the Asgardian transport
05:35 ship.
05:36 As it turned out, Loki secretly stole the Tesseract from Asgard's vaults before its
05:40 destruction, and Thanos was later drawn to its energy signature.
05:45 Thanos and his lieutenants, the Black Order, easily subdue the Asgardians, defeating Thor
05:49 and Hulk with little effort.
05:52 Loki's attempted bait-and-switch betrayal of Thanos fails too, spurring the Mad Titan
05:56 to strangle the god of mischief to death.
05:59 Thanos and the Black Order depart from the Asgardian vessel, but not before initiating
06:03 its destruction behind them.
06:05 In the days afterward, Thor mourns the loss of his brother, robbed of the chance to enjoy
06:09 a more harmonious future with him.
06:12 Loki's death helps fuel Thor's obsessive quest for revenge on Thanos, which leads to…
06:17 "You should have gone for the head."
06:24 After Thanos uses the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all life in the universe, he destroys
06:29 the stones to preserve his victory.
06:32 This prompts the surviving heroes to travel back to different points in history and recover
06:36 the stones themselves.
06:38 Since the Space Stone was in Manhattan during the Battle of New York, Tony Stark leads a
06:42 small group of Avengers back in time to 2012.
06:46 Stark moves to snag the stone shortly after Loki is defeated and escorted out of Stark
06:50 Tower.
06:51 The diversion caused by Ant-Man is upended, however, by the sudden appearance of the Hulk,
06:55 who accidentally knocks the Space Stone to the captive Loki's feet.
06:59 Seizing the opportunity, Loki grabs the stone and teleports away to parts unknown.
07:04 This drastic divergence in history causes the creation of an alternate timeline, as
07:08 Loki unwittingly flees his own demise.
07:13 This alternate timeline version of Loki escapes with the Space Stone into the Gobi Desert,
07:18 but is quickly apprehended by the Time Variance Authority.
07:21 The TVA agents identify themselves as peacekeepers who maintain the sacred timeline.
07:26 As such, they view the divergent Loki as a violation and a threat.
07:31 Taking Loki back to their headquarters, the TVA judges the trickster for his crimes against
07:35 the sacred timeline.
07:37 But TVA operative Mobius M. Mobius saves the prisoner from being erased, feeling he could
07:42 be of use to the organization.
07:44 Mobius shows Loki that his actions will cause the death of Frigga, prompting Loki to escape
07:48 custody and use the time theater to view his future in the sacred timeline.
07:53 For obvious reasons, he then decides that he can't return to his own timeline.
07:58 "What's so funny?"
08:02 "Glorious purpose."
08:07 Rocked to the core by his alternate self's redemption and death, Loki admits to Mobius
08:12 that his love of mischief is driven by a need for control.
08:15 Following this confession, Loki agrees to help the TVA stop a mysterious killer, somebody
08:20 who is targeting TVA agents and stealing their technology.
08:25 A long, long time ago, a grueling multiversal war nearly destroyed all of reality.
08:31 In the aftermath, the Time Keepers supposedly created the TVA to maintain a single timeline,
08:36 which they named the Sacred Timeline.
08:38 To prevent a potential second war, the TVA prunes alternate timelines as well as individuals
08:43 born of these divergences.
08:45 This happens as part of a process that they refer to as "resetting."
08:49 Individuals from branch timelines are known as "variants," while TVA personnel are composed
08:54 of agents lifted from various realities.
08:57 Among the most prominent TVA figures are Judge Ravonna Renslayer, Enforcer Hunter B-15, and
09:02 the organization's animated mascot, Miss Minutes.
09:05 "Oh, hey, quit it!"
09:08 "That is not nice!"
09:10 "Jerk."
09:11 Working alongside the TVA, Loki learns that the killer is a variant of himself named Sylvie.
09:17 Determined to liberate time from what she views as the TVA's oppressive control, Sylvie
09:22 sets out to destroy the Time Keepers.
09:25 As Loki tries to reason with Sylvie, the two variants grow close, but Sylvie remains as
09:30 challenging and vengeful as ever in her drive to avenge her pruned timeline.
09:34 In a shocking twist, Sylvie learns that the Time Keepers are robots created by somebody
09:39 else, a mysterious figure who lives beyond time and space.
09:44 After Ravonna seemingly erases Loki for betraying the TVA, Sylvie discovers that erased variants
09:50 are actually sent to the Void, a strange place located at the far end of time.
09:55 Deducing that the key to finding he who remains lies in the Void, Sylvie erases herself and
10:00 reunites with Loki, who has been on something of a journey himself.
10:03 "Come on, what did you expect?"
10:06 As they enter the Citadel at the end of time, Loki and Sylvie meet he who remains.
10:11 He explains that multiversal versions of himself launched the Time War against each other.
10:16 After he defeated his own variants, he who remains created the Sacred Timeline to be
10:21 free of their influence.
10:22 Having grown tired of maintaining the Sacred Timeline, he who remains offers Loki and Sylvie
10:27 the chance to either govern the timeline themselves or kill him and free the multiverse.
10:32 Though Loki believes he who remains, Sylvie is consumed by her thirst for revenge.
10:38 She forces Loki back to TVA headquarters before stabbing he who remains to death.
10:43 "This is him."
10:46 Sylvie immediately realizes that he was telling the truth, as the Sacred Timeline branches
10:50 into multiple divergences.
10:52 Meanwhile, Loki finds himself in what appears to be another version of the TVA, this time
10:57 overseen by one of he who remains' variants.
11:01 A different and far less friendly variant of he who remains resurfaces in Ant-Man and
11:06 the Wasp Quantumania.
11:08 First encountered by Janet Van Dyne, the man known as Kang was exiled to the Quantum Realm
11:13 by his fellow variants out of fear of his destructive tendencies.
11:17 Janet sabotaged Kang's attempt to escape the Quantum Realm before she departed herself,
11:21 leading Kang to conquer the microscopic world and rule it with an iron fist.
11:26 Ant-Man, the Wasp, and their family are summoned by Kang to the Quantum Realm, where they manage
11:31 to kill the villain before escaping.
11:33 News of Kang's death reaches an entire army of Kang variants elsewhere in the multiverse.
11:38 With their greatest threat eliminated, a variant named Immortus plans to lead his fellow counterparts
11:43 in conquering the multiverse.
11:45 Elsewhere, Loki and Mobius are seen observing a Kang variant named Victor Timely on Earth
11:50 in 1901.
11:52 Though Mobius doesn't see the bespectacled man as a threat, Loki recognizes him as a
11:56 man of extreme importance.
11:59 The second season of Loki sees the return of plenty of familiar faces.
12:03 Mobius, Ravonna, Hunter B-15, and Miss Minutes are all confirmed to return, although it's
12:09 not currently known which version of themselves they might be.
12:12 Another returning TVA member, Casey, is a variant Hunter during the events of Loki Season
12:17 2, rather than the desk jockey Loki met in the preceding season.
12:20 Meanwhile, the second season introduces TVA agent Obi, who specializes in creating the
12:25 organization's high-tech gear.
12:28 Victor Timely will also return in Loki Season 2, expanding on the tease seen at the end
12:32 of Quantumania.
12:34 Sylvie is back too, now working at a McDonald's in 1982 and seemingly struggling with the
12:39 consequences of her actions.
12:41 As the season begins, Loki finds himself pulled between past and present, leading him into
12:46 a race against time to avert a new war or face total annihilation.
12:51 What do you think?
12:52 What do you think?
12:52 (upbeat music)
12:54 [BLANK_AUDIO]