Highlights
- The intersecting timelines in Loki season 2 could have significant consequences on the MCU multiverse, as energy collisions tend to affect each other in the real world.
- These intersecting timelines may share synchronicity at certain significant points, resembling Canon Events in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
- The potential collapse of the multiverse due to intersecting timelines could be exploited by Kang the Conqueror to rewrite history and advance his war plans. Loki and the TVA's main goal is to stabilize the Time Loom to prevent infinite branching timelines.
Loki season 2 has revealed the consequences of Sylvie killing He Who Remains. On the TVA’s timeline monitor, several branching timelines are depicted in two-dimensional form. It appears that some of the branching timelines have intersected. This could be a new phenomenon for the MCU multiverse or, it could just be a poor illustration. The fictional scientific revelations of time as energy could make these intersecting timelines problematic. When two different matters of energy collide or come into proximity of each other, they tend to have an effect on each other in the real world. Not to say that real world physics should apply in Loki or the MCU but, revealing this information without plot justification would spoil a potentially huge, if not satisfying, payoff.
Branching timelines in the MCU have not yet been shown to have an impact on any other timeline. But if timelines intersect, the consequences could range from being disastrous to virtually harmless. It is possible, however, that the timelines that appear to be intersecting are not exactly crossing through each other. It could actually be a timeline passing over or under another. That said, the point of intersection or passing could still be a significant point in time that two different timelines could now share on some level of synchronicity. History may not be repeating itself exactly in those Loki season 2 timelines, but there could be an echo.
MCU's Version Of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse's Canon Events
In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the multiverse timelines were shown to be connected to each other like a web network. The points of connections were called Canon Events. These were the moments in Spider-Man’s life that repeated in some way in another Spider-Person’s life. For instance, the death of Uncle Ben for Peter Parker is the Canon Event that has led to the loss of loved ones in the lives of other Spider-People. It’s the same loss or Canon Event Miles Morales hopes to prevent in his universe. These Canon Events are the proverbial “echo” that could happen in the MCU multiverse if there’s any significance to the seemingly intersecting timelines.
However, unlike Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, whether these similar events unfold in similar ways may not be as necessary. Universes can effectively implode if these Canon Events do not happen as they should in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The MCU multiverse need not stick to the same multiversal principle in Loki. There are other theoretical multiverse concepts the MCU could employ regarding the effect or influence timelines could have on each other, especially when they intersect or run close to each other. Parallel timelines, in one theory, could have the forced effect of when one Loki goes left, his parallel variant Loki is forced to go right. This makes the free will and self-determination Sylvie and Loki are fighting for essentially out of their control once again.
What Canon Events Could Mean For MCU Timeline
Assuming the points of intersection or passing of timelines in Loki are similar to Canon Events, this also puts a damper on Loki’s hopes of writing his own story. While it justifies the MCU to continue telling similar stories with familiar characters due to the physics of the multiverse, it also creates more potential stories like Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness. Universal or multiverse collapse may be the opportunity Kang the Conqueror is searching for to restore the Sacred Timeline. Therefore, these intersecting timelines could be opportunities to rewrite history by travelling to intersecting points of time. Time traveling Kang variants could use those points in time to easily and more quickly move forward with their multiverse war plans.
Time harnessed as energy has the potential to affect neighboring timelines whether they collide or not. The Sacred Timeline is a stream of a singular and directed timeline energy through the Time Loom. Similar to the solar flares or the effects of distant collapsed stars on other nearby celestial bodies, dispersed rampant energy, e.g. uncontrollable branching timelines, could lead to disastrous consequences. Thus, the timelines in Loki may be having unknown influences on each other. The degree of the impact of such an effect, if any, is up to the writers’ discretion and imagination. Loki and the TVA’s next move is stabilizing the Time Loom to accommodate for infinite branching timelines.
The theoretical implications could tie the MCU multiverse together like the web-based timelines of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. But, that’s likely not the solution Loki and Sylvie would prefer if they hope to keep their autonomy. This puts them in a difficult situation of possibly managing the branching timelines to keep them from connecting or intersecting, which likely means pruning them. The only other foreseeable alternative is reinstating He Who Remains, or a less evil, tyrannical variant, to come up with a solution to divert timelines from intersecting. This, however, may mean more manipulation of people's free will for the safety and well-being of the multiverse. Freedom of choice comes at a high price in Loki, a price neither Loki nor Sylvie are prepared to pay.