[The following contains spoilers for Loki season 1, episode 6]
Loki actress Sophia Di Martino says Sylvie had her mind set on killing [spoiler] in the show’s season 1 finale and could not have been swayed. The latest Marvel streaming show may be named after the God of Mischief as fans know him from previous MCU movies, but the series surprisingly wound up being just as much about female Loki variant Sylvie Laufeydottir, played by breakout star Di Martino.
Sylvie was introduced in stunning fashion in Loki episode 2 as a possible main villain, but episode 3 filled in her backstory and cast her in more of a heroic light. As the show explained, Sylvie lived on Asgard but was taken away by the mysterious Time Variance Authority as a young girl. She managed to escape from the TVA however and made it her mission to destroy the organization and their Sacred Timeline. She meets Loki after years of creating a menace for the TVA, and quickly wins him over despite his Loki-like arrogance. In the season 1 finale, Loki and Sylvie make their way to the Citadel at the End of Time where they meet the entity responsible for the TVA and Sacred Timeline, a man called He Who Remains (who is in fact a variant of Kang the Conqueror). The weary god then explains his own backstory to Loki and Sylvie and gives them a choice: kill him and unleash an uncontrollable multiverse or become his successors as guardians of the Sacred Timeline and also get to be together.
The wise choice in that moment surely would be for Loki and Sylvie to take He Who Remains up on his offer of becoming his successors. But in her lust for revenge, Sylvie rejects the chance – also rejecting Loki - and fulfills her vengeful purpose, unleashing multiverse chaos. And if fans thought there was ever a chance that things could have turned out differently, perhaps they should think again, because according to Sylvie actress Di Martino her character never seriously considered taking another road. Speaking to Collider, Di Martino explained, “For Sylvie, she's just on a revenge mission from the minute she walks into that building, she knows that she wants to kill someone.” She continued:
I think there's a moment that [He Who Remains] really pushes Sylvie's buttons when he's talking about you have been on a long journey and it's been really tough for you, hasn't it? And you can't trust anyone. You think you can trust [Loki]. And he starts playing mind games with them, playing them off against each other. And I think at that point, he plants a seed of doubt in her mind about Loki, but I think her mission to want to kill him doesn't change. She's absolutely married to that idea. And that feeling is so strong that she chooses it over Loki in the end.
Di Martino chalked up Sylvie’s single-mindedness to “Having her life taken away from her, her life ruined, spending her whole life on the run, this sort of anger.” She added in honor of Loki’s favorite catchphrase, “And if you want to think of it in these terms, her ‘glorious purpose.’ I went there.”
That Loki wound up being as much about Sylvie’s “glorious purpose” as Loki’s certainly was a curveball and a welcome one at that. Indeed, Sylvie’s grit in hunting down the one responsible for ruining her life added a sense of narrative momentum that might not have been present had things focused on Loki and his somewhat more laid-back approach to his own supposed “glorious purpose.” Creating a whole new character with this strong, single-minded motivation was just one masterstroke for a show that played it right almost from start to finish.
All that being said though, it was still reckless of Sylvie to choose personal revenge over the fate of literally the entire universe. It can indeed be argued that Sylvie wound up the true villain because of her fateful final choice (that was indeed not even a choice according to Di Martino), not only because she unleashed chaos, but because she broke Loki’s heart. There’s certainly much to sort out when Loki returns for its already-confirmed season 2.
Source: Collider
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