Loki’s female variant left the Time Variance Authority scrambling as she bombs the sacred timeline into chaos. Here’s every time and location she targeted.
SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Loki Season 1, Episode 2, “The Variant”.
Loki’s episode 2 finally revealed the Evil Variant and her mischievous plan. With Loki’s female variant releasing dozens of reset charges across history and space causing branch timelines to chaotically spawn from the sacred timeline. Played by Sophia Di Martino, Lady Loki is a female variant of the God of Mischief who has been plaguing the TVA by drawing in their Minutemen, killing them, and stealing their reset charges. Back in the TVA various dates and locations show when and where the variant targeted exactly.
Used to shut down rogue timelines, the reset charges “prune the affected radius of a branched timeline, allowing time to heal all its wounds,” according to the official TVA wording. In Loki’s rather more blunt wording, they disintegrate everything in their vicinity. This variant stole dozens of reset charges from TVA hunters that she has been murdering. Loki Episode 2 revealed that she’s also been stealing their temp pads these are the devices that open the doors in time. Lady Loki finally reveals her true plan when she scatters them across time and space, effectively bombing the sacred timeline and creating the kind of chaotic multiverse that the TVA was supposed to prevent.
Hiding in this doomed oxcart superstore in 2050 the variant has been rigging all of this tech to detonate, simultaneously dropping these reset charges throughout history on planets throughout the universe causing the sacred timeline to chaotically split into dozens of new branches but reset charges are supposed to erase branch timelines yet here they’re spawning branches from the sacred timeline.
It’s possible that Lady Loki chose random targets for the reset charges, since no matter where and when they ended up, they would still achieve the goal of rupturing the sacred timeline. She also may have been trying to affect specific events to change the universe according to her preferences. When the reset charges are activated, the screens at the TVA show some of the times and locations that they were sent to. Here’s everywhere (and everywhen) that Lady Loki bombed, and what kind of futures she may have created.
Niflheim
Niflheim, one of the nine Asgardian realms believed to be where hella was imprisoned. Lady Loki targeted several – possibly all – of the Nine Realms, including the realm of Niflheim. Lifted from Norse mythology, Niflheim is a realm of ice, mists, and cold that’s linked with Hel, the world of the undead. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Niflheim was for many years the abode of Thor: Ragnarok villain Hela, who was trapped there for millennia by Odin. The main timeline’s Loki tangled with Hela in Ragnarok, so perhaps Lady Loki has crossed paths with her as well.
Nowhere
Nowhere is the severed head of a celestial home to the collector visited in guardians of the galaxy, now simply a floating skull in space. It is home to a mining colony whose inhabitants have a rich trade in mining brain, bone, and spinal fluid from the dead Celestial. Knowhere made its first MCU appearance in Thor: The Dark World’s post-credits scene when Sif and Valstagg handed over the Reality Stone to the Collector for safekeeping. Lady Loki may have been targeting one of these Infinity Stones, or she could have been interested in one of the many other valuable items (and creatures) in the Collector’s possession.
As such, no date is shown on the TVA’s screen but it could have bombed the moment that celestial was beheaded in ancient times maybe some history we could soon see as part of the celestial’s origins in the Eternals film.
Vormir
Vormir was the location of the soul stone which nebula once called a dominion of death at the center of celestial existence so 2301 would be hundreds of years after the events of the endgame and the soul stones atomization. Two major MCU characters have died there: Gamora, who was sacrificed by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War; and Black Widow, who sacrificed herself in Avengers: Endgame so that Hawkeye could get the Soul Stone. According to the TVA’s screens, a reset charge hit Vormir on April 23, 2301. That’s long after Gamora and Black Widow’s deaths, and also after the Soul Stone was destroyed by Thanos, so it’s uncertain what kind of branching timeline Lady Loki has created with this attack.
Asgard
As the Loki variant learns while reading his case file at the TVA, Asgard was destroyed by Surtur at the end of Thor: Ragnarok. In a new branch timeline February 16, 2004, Asgard so 2004 would be eight years before the events of the first Thor film in Asgard and maybe now this branch is one where thor and Odin could have died in battle and Loki ascended to the throne which could explain that shot in the trailer with Loki on aid variant Asgardian throne October 3rd, 1390 Rome Italy this was during the great western schism in the catholic church. This is seven years before Loki learned that he’s actually a Frost Giant who was taken from Jotunheim as a baby, so by hitting this point in Asgard’s timeline Lady Loki may well have created yet another Loki variant.
Sakaar
Sakaar is an artificial trash planet created by the Grandmaster in the Tayo star system and is surrounded by numerous wormholes that deposit space waste. Sakaar is the homeworld of the Sakaarans and many other species stranded on the planet from different parts of the cosmos. Continuing the tour of Thor: Ragnarok locations, one of Lady Loki’s reset charges was sent to Sakaar on August 13, 1984. Located in the Tayo star system, Sakaar is a trash planet that is ruled by the Grandmaster and surrounded by wormholes that are forever dumping more space trash for the local scavengers to dig through. One of these wormholes, affectionately nicknamed “The Devil’s Anus,” connects to different locations around the universe, so if the reset charge accidentally got sucked into the Devil’s Anus there’s no telling where it might have ended up.
Ego
Ego was a Celestial, a primordial and powerful being, and the biological father of Peter Quill. A living planet with a humanoid extension of himself, Ego sought to find meaning in his life and, to achieve this end, planned to remake the entire universe via an omnicidal extinction-level event known as the Expansion, using “seeds” planted on various worlds to terraform them into new extensions of himself, thereby eradicating all other life in the universe but himself. Star-Lord did inherit Ego’s Celestial gene, but at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, he killed Ego to stop the mad planet from taking over the whole universe. Lady Loki sends a reset charge to Ego on December 27, 1832, which could create a timeline where Star-Lord was never born.
Titan
Best known in the MCU as the home planet of Thanos, Titan once had a thriving civilization but was decimated by overpopulation and left as a barren wasteland plagued by electrical storms. Titan is the desolated home planet of the Titans. This happened long before the time to which the reset charge is sent, October 13, 1982, so rather than targeting the Titans in general Lady Loki may have been specifically targeting Thanos. Taking Thanos out of the occasion would create a timeline where the Snap never happened and the Infinity Stones were never destroyed, and would also save the main timeline’s Loki from being killed by Thanos.
Hala
Hala is the homeworld of the Kree and the capital planet of the Kree Empire. Hala is an advanced planet that is the homeworld of the Kree. In 1989, Carol Danvers was abducted from Earth. Hala was heavily featured in Captain Marvel. Carol “Vers” Danvers lived there for many years after losing her memories and being recruited to fight in the Kree-Skrull War. Lady Loki’s reset charge hits Hala on January 3, 54 CE, a couple of millennia before Carol’s arrival, and about a thousand years before the Kree-Skrull War began.
Xandar
Xandar is the homeworld of the Xandarians and to many other species as the capital of the Nova Empire with a population of twelve billion. Xandar was located in the Andromeda Galaxy.
The capital of the Nova Empire, Xandar made its first MCU appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy and was the place where the original Guardians (minus Drax) met for the first time. Its population was later decimated by Thanos, who tore Xandar apart to get the Infinity Stone that was in the Nova Corps’ custody. The reset charge hits Xandar on September 24, 1001, and may drastically change the course of the planet’s history.
Jotunheim
Jotunheim is one of the Nine Realms and the home of the Frost Giants. The planet is seen to be deteriorating from the lack of ice magic that comes from the Casket of Ancient Winters. It was ruled by Laufey. An ill-placed reset charge here could risk wiping all the Loki variants out of existence by preventing him from being born, but it’s unclear what date the time bomb was sent to.
Earth Locations
Might happen that Lady Loki was specifically targeting Earth, or perhaps it’s because there are only so many non-Earth locations established in the MCU, most of the places that appear on the TVA’s screens are on Earth. There’s a preference for major cities like New York, Rome, and Tokyo, but there doesn’t appear to be any particular significance to the dates, which supports the theory that Lady Loki is just trying to create random chaos. Here’s every Earth-based location that the TVA’s screens show being hit by a reset charge.
- Rome, Italy – October 3rd, 1390
- Lisbon, Portugal – March 31, 1492
- Phong Nha, Vietnam – August 3, 1522
- Barcelona, Spain – 1540
- Thorton, USA – October 25, 1551
- Porvoo, Finland – July 14, 1708
- Barichara, Columbia – February 2, 1808
- Madrid, Spain – July 18, 1903
- New York, USA – September 21, 1947
- Tokyo, Japan – March 1, 1984
- Kingsport, USA – August 2, 1999
- Cookeville, USA – November 22, 1999
- Beijing, China – November 23, 2005
- Dartford, England – 2006
