The second episode of Loki is here, and the show is already twisting its own twists enough to make a contortionist blush. But one major reveal in particular already has everyone talking—and we want to know what you think is going on!
The climax of “The Variant” pulls the rug under ours, the God of Mischief’s, and probably half the TVA’s proverbial feet by revealing the identity of the mysterious Loki Variant Mobius has tasked our Loki with helping to hunt down. Not only does he successfully find them, but he also discovers the identity of his fellow Loki is actually the Goddess of Mischief. Or is she? The Variant, played by Sophia Di Martino, certainly looks like she’s taking an aesthetic page out of the appearance of Lady Loki in Marvel’s comics. First appearing in 2008’s Thor #5, the female version of Loki was not a shapeshifting trick or a “variant” as it appears to be in the Disney+ series—it was Loki’s actual body, after the Asgardian was reborn alongside his fellow gods on Earth in the wake of Ragnarok. The character remained female for a while, joining Norman Osborn’s Cabal in the events of Dark Reign, but eventually returned to a masculine form after breaking away from Osborn in an attempt to bring Asgard back to its proper place within the Realms (Loki actually died in the attempt, being reborn as a new “Kid Loki,” because, well, it wouldn’t be comics if it wasn’t at least mildly confusing).
But while Di Martino certainly looks like a female Loki—she wears his classic golden horns, her costume is evocative of Loki’s original Thor/Avengers-era outfit in the MCU—and we’ve been told by the TVA that the Variant attacking their agents is the Loki of another timeline, Marvel fans are already wondering if all is not as it seems. While Di Martino is credited as “the Variant” in the English credits of the episode, fans took to Twitter after noticing that, in Disney+’s credits for the Castillian Spanish language dub of the episode, the character, voiced by Elisa Beuter, is credited as “Sylvie”… another name familiar to Loki fans in the comics, but, very crucially, not Loki themselves.
Around the time Asgardians were being reborn in human bodies after the cataclysmic events of Ragnarok, Loki decided to use their powers to give a human magical abilities—convincing them they were a reborn Asgardian themselves, essentially for shits and giggles. That human was Sylvie Lushton, a young high schooler from Broxton, Oklahoma (the then-current residing place of what was left of Asgard), who decided to use her abilities as the second incarnation of Asgardian mage Amora, better known as the Enchantress. Sylvie fought alongside the Young Avengers for a brief time as Enchantress, but was eventually shunned by them and turned to a life of villainy… until the actual Enchantress showed up very mad that someone was pretending to be her, and banished her to a random Realm as punishment, never to be seen again.
The credit spot aside, there is reason to believe that Di Martino’s variant may not be Loki even beyond that. She actively recoils at being referred to as such as she hops through people’s magically possessed bodies in her chat with Loki, and even her pointed line after revealing her true form to Loki (“This isn’t about you”) might indicate that she herself either may not be Loki or is at the very least uninterested in being seen as such. So is she really just Lady Loki, or is there more to her than she seems? Is “Sylvie” a knowing misnomer for diehard comics fans, or a slip up for another twist on top of Loki’s already considerable pile of twists? Sound off with your theories in the comments… until they get upturned all over again next week, probably.
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