Learning to Love Your Loki-Self

GeekTherapy · January 24, 2022, 12:05am

Originally published at: https://geektherapy.org/learning-to-love-your-loki-self/

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#306: Lara, Josué, and Link talk about Loki, self-love, survival, and if it’s even possible to make time loops in multiverses make sense.

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Transcript

Josué Cardona 0:11
Welcome to gt radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy. We believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about my name is Josué Cardona. I’m joined by Link Keller.

Link Keller 0:19
Hello,

Josué Cardona 0:20
Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:21
Hey,

Josué Cardona 0:23
Lara. Let’s talk Loki What’s up?

Lara Taylor 0:26
Let’s talk Loki. Loki wonderful show. Amazing Show.

Josué Cardona 0:31
I’m a fan. I like it.

Lara Taylor 0:33
I’m big fan. That’s why I want to talk about it. There’s a lot of things that come up in it.

Josué Cardona 0:38
I hope it’s more than just that. We like it. Yeah, yeah.

Lara Taylor 0:41
That’s it the podcasts over

Josué Cardona 0:43
okay. We can do that too

Lara Taylor 0:44
i like loki. Um, I don’t know about you, but I had a lot of like, existential crises like watching this show.

Josué Cardona 0:53
Whoa, okay.

Link Keller 0:55
Explain.

Josué Cardona 0:56
Yeah, please

Link Keller 0:57
elaborate.

Josué Cardona 0:57
The floor is yours.

Lara Taylor 0:59
I mean, this whole concept of like, determinism, and like, everything is planned out. I think I’ve also been playing, playing and watching a lot of I finished watching Watch. Wow, I can speak today. I finished watching, watching Damn, I can’t come up with words. I finished watching Vikings. And I think the theme of the gods planned things out.

Josué Cardona 1:29
The same gods,

Lara Taylor 1:30
the same gods. In fact, one of those Gods is the main character of the show. Um, but a lot. This idea of everything is planned out everything you can’t, like, in some of the final episodes of Vikings too. It was like you can’t go down the wrong path. Right. Like it’s dead. This is how it was designed to be you can’t make the wrong decision. Well, same kind of thing with with Loki except if you do make the wrong decision. You get pruned.

Josué Cardona 2:06
you Die. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, there’s a it’s like every possibility is possible. Except that

Lara Taylor 2:14
it’s not.

Josué Cardona 2:15
If you if you do it, we won’t let that stand. That’s not allowed. It’s it is It was so I don’t know the feeling from hopefully I’ll figure it out by the end of this, of knowing that this, that all of these things that were happening to this Loki were in a way like, potential right that was that was not allowed to, to happen. And Sylvie, Sylvie is even is way way, way more sad, because she was taken as a child.

Lara Taylor 2:50
And then she’s just existed. She didn’t like try to do anything.

Josué Cardona 2:54
When we I mean, I don’t think anything like that. You could argue that for all of them. But she was a kid and she survived long enough to like, we don’t know how old she is. Right? We have no idea how long she was traveling, and surviving. And not to mention, like the the trauma that I’m sure it comes from simply existing in world ending event apocalyptic and apocalyptic events. Yeah, over and over again. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So So what’s so you had an existential crisis? Because just like this idea, yeah.

Lara Taylor 3:30
Well, the idea of like, Are things planned out? And I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t think they are, but there’s like, what is it? But is it right? Like the matrix, right, like, are we simulation are we guys??

Josué Cardona 3:45
I don’t know. I kind of go into a very deep conversation.

Lara Taylor 3:48
I know.

Josué Cardona 3:50
But um, so So I had a Lyft driver the other day, and she was like, No, no, I just I believe that everything happens for a reason and you know, like boba and I’m extremely resistant to that. So so you know, I wanted to blow up the the TVA as well. Um Yeah,

Lara Taylor 4:09
are you a slyvie or a Loki

Josué Cardona 4:11
Oh, what’s what’s the difference? Exactly?

Lara Taylor 4:14
Not much.

Josué Cardona 4:19
Yeah, I Ah,

Lara Taylor 4:22
not all Loki’s are Sylvie’s but all slyvies are Loki’s.

Josué Cardona 4:26
Yeah, this is true. So so. So I mean, you know that that’s how I feel about it like so you don’t? Do you believe that? Fate and things like that?

Lara Taylor 4:35
I don’t, but it’s one of those things where like the thought gets in my head and so many things. We’ve talked about time travel, and things like that before on this show, and like, we can’t go and we and we can’t go back and fix things. And I think this is just a different version of that right? Like there is one way to be there is only one course I don’t I don’t know if I like i don’t i don’t think that things are are meant to be or whatever. But there’s there’s something along the lines of like, well, it happened. And we can’t go back and change it literally here. They can go back and change it.

Josué Cardona 5:19
Yes and No, no, actually I say no, I can’t go back and change it actually, you can’t

Lara Taylor 5:24
right it just becomes another branch.

Josué Cardona 5:26
It just, it just branches off. So you can’t you can’t actually undo anything. Um, they explained this in endgame. Right, right. Right. Right. Back to the Future is wrong. That’s right. Yeah. How do you how do you feel about these ideas? Link, trying to take a guess? But

Link Keller 5:45
how do I feel about these ideas?

Josué Cardona 5:48
The idea of,

Link Keller 5:49
i think they’re interesting ideas, and it’s fun to explore them through visual medium.

Josué Cardona 5:54
Know that the idea that things are either happen for a reason, or pre determined, etc. No

Lara Taylor 6:00
meant to be.

Josué Cardona 6:03
Because God let it happen. You know, God allowed it, because

Lara Taylor 6:07
the tva let it happen.

Link Keller 6:08
You’re asking if I believe that in real life?

Josué Cardona 6:11
No, no, I’m asking what do I believe, period?

Link Keller 6:14
What do I do? See, these

Lara Taylor 6:17
are the questions. These are the existential question,

Link Keller 6:20
I believe, in freewill, I believe in the multiverse, I’m very confused as to why they introduced the concept of the multiverse and then completely abandoned that to instead focus on the concept of a time loop.

Josué Cardona 6:42
What

Link Keller 6:44
right, the What do they call it the holy? The sacred timeline is a ring a circle. There’s around

Lara Taylor 6:55
No, because there’s the end of time.

Link Keller 6:59
except that they explained beforehand that there is a loop that there is the loop and that that Mobius describes like we’ve watched, you know, we know what your path is supposed to be. We’ve watched you do it 100 times like that is how it is that’s how it’s always been. It’s how it’s always going to be. But then they backpedal on that idea very quickly to be like, Oh, yeah, the end, the end of time is a place that exists. physical space. I don’t know it felt it felt very confusing. So I don’t know.

Josué Cardona 7:33
That’s that’s I didn’t ask you that. That wasn’t the question like, what

Link Keller 7:37
i answered your question, That was the first thing you asked? I believe in free will. I don’t I don’t I don’t believe that there is some sacred destiny, where people are just going to do the things that they have to do because God decided that that was the way it’s happening. I don’t believe in that. I don’t think that the show believes in that either. Because it undermines that idea constantly.

Lara Taylor 8:02
I write it has people have free will. It’s just somebody is telling them that they can’t have the free will.

Josué Cardona 8:10
I mean, no,

Link Keller 8:10
no, everybody has free will but. Certain expressions of freewill are then responded to by this bureaucracy.

Lara Taylor 8:21
Yeah.

Link Keller 8:22
And they transplant, that freewill into a space where then it can be consumed by a void.

Lara Taylor 8:33
I think I think there’s a joke about the existence or like I had, my existential crisis was more about that first episode on those Infinity Stones. I’m just saying, I just wasted how many years worrying about these Infinity Stones.

Link Keller 8:49
I love that scene so much.

Link Keller 8:51
There were a couple of things that really withdrew a lot of the oomph, from previous Marvel experiences.

Lara Taylor 9:02
And I think that was like the point of

Link Keller 9:04
hardcore. Some of its like, okay, that’s fun. This is a fun comic book thing to do. But also like, whooo okay,

Josué Cardona 9:13
I love the thing, the moment that you see that he’s genuinely in awe of this place. I forgot what he says he’s like, is this the most powerful is this is this the greatest power in the universe? You know, it’s like, in a in a way they do play with this idea of like, if there was a god, this is it, right? Like, like, like, this is kind of, I’m here like, this is the ultimate power. There’s nothing above this. This is literally controls even fate, right? Because the idea like I believe, I’m not an expert in this right, but it’s like the idea of that any Every action is possible and but is also in existence, right? Within quantum mechanics, like there’s a version of every possible every possibility exists in a multiverse, right? It’s like theoretical science kind of stuff, right? So basically, like, they pruned it down to just have one thing, right? And it can never be, never go beyond this, right? And so he’s going through. And he’s like, no, let’s keep this one. Let’s not keep this one. This one, right. It’s like, narrowing it down, narrowing it down or down to that point where it’s just one thing thats six episodes later, like then just in the first episode, Loki is already like this. This is the greatest power in the universe, like what what am I? How can you? How can you fight this? What do you even do against them? Which is why? Early on, he just, he just becomes a part of it. I’m not even, I don’t even I’m not even sure if I’m convinced that he was convinced of what his position was at any point in time. Like, right, he adjusted, he was like, Oh, I better I better I’m gonna survive by just falling in line. And then something changed. He was like, I’m going to move this way. Actually, I hadn’t thought about that. But he, in the beginning, they talked about a glorious purpose. And throughout this entire series, he there was never a goal. Like he and he never stuck to any one thing. Um, I’d love to hear what other people have to think about this. But if he

Link Keller 11:30
his goal was to dismantle the TVA and he failed

Lara Taylor 11:36
Well, no, that was a Sylvie’s goal. Sylvie’s goal, his goal may be to be in charge of it. Maybe

Josué Cardona 11:43
I’m not convinced of that, either.

Link Keller 11:44
He definitely threw in with Sylvie, he was pretty clear about like, I am choosing you and your motivational drive.

Josué Cardona 11:55
That wasn’t his initial goal. And it wasn’t his final goal. Like he completely shifted constantly the moment that things changed. he would he would change direction. He was constantly changing direction, even at the end, when there was like, okay, like, there’s actually there’s two options. Let’s not do what what if we don’t do this? Let’s not how about we don’t do that particular thing? Maybe just not yet. He was never

Lara Taylor 12:19
it just to think about it. Let’s just think about it.

Josué Cardona 12:23
I hadn’t thought about this. I feel like I really felt for this version of Loki. And now the more I think about it, the more he was just trying to survive and kept just shifting. Again like he had no no guiding principle no

Lara Taylor 12:41
no glorious purpose

Josué Cardona 12:43
Yeah, yeah, there was no direction. It was just, it was constantly adjusting. Mm hmm.

Lara Taylor 12:54
And constantly looking to others for what they wanted and needed and was happy when he was able to help those people like

Josué Cardona 13:06
yeah There’s Damn, there’s something Yeah, I’m finding something very relatable about this particular loki that I hadn’t thought about before. Yeah, yeah. So so so have you I’m not sure if you explained your existential crises completely.

Lara Taylor 13:27
Just like Well, there’s the joke about like the Infinity Stones is like it made me like questions spending not really question I love all the Marvel movies but like, they’ve like completely knocked out the impact of endgame and everything that led up to it. And now now we’re setting up for something even bigger

Josué Cardona 13:56
Do you

Lara Taylor 13:57
but I guess that’s that’s the point of I guess that’s also the point of comics like you start with like the friendly neighborhood Spider Man and like saving cats and saving stopping bank robberies or whatever and then it just gets bigger. Yeah, bigger. And now it’s like cosmic in time.

Josué Cardona 14:17
I really feel that it it’s somehow they take something away from the previous 372 movies.

Lara Taylor 14:32
I think that’s the maybe

Josué Cardona 14:34
Hmm

Lara Taylor 14:34
maybe like literally none of it mattered. it was all predetermined and supposed to happen

Link Keller 14:42
it’s not that it didn’t matter it’s that it was all this was all decided by this was a this was a chosen timeline. Everything that happened word that was the the pick of which timeline, I’m gonna save

Lara Taylor 14:56
right and everything down to them going back in time. Getting the stones and like coming back to the future and Steve staying behind it was all pre determined. This is so this is the appropriate

Link Keller 15:13
I did love with that context. I did love that in Episode Six when or five? no six when the cute little clock lady

Lara Taylor 15:28
Miss minutes,

Link Keller 15:29
Miss minutes is all like hey, like Loki. Like instead of like pushing forward with this, like why don’t we give you like a timeline where it’s like, ooh, you successfully did the things that you wanted to do you beat Thanos like Don’t you want that when five episodes before he had been confronted with like not only did like you within that context, Loki not have very much purpose or ability to do anything

Lara Taylor 15:56
you die

Link Keller 15:57
its like in the big grand scale of things. You don’t you’re not supposed to do anything. It’s like the temptation of being like, not just like, Oh, do you want power? We know how much you love power. Loki is like do you want this falsehood that you believed in for so long back? Like, do you want to go back to the old simpler times? When there would be simple solutions to your problems? Like it’s you win you just you defeat thanos? And that’s great. And everybody is so happy and wonderful. And it’s like, Yeah, no, you you got you guys told me that that was a meaningless thing. Like, huh, huh. So But yeah, I did really like that as like an option to be like, hey, Loki, like? And he was like, No, no, thank you. I’m good.

Josué Cardona 16:50
Do we actually see, we don’t actually see Thanos get defeated in the flashbacks that are shown or in the or in the views that are shown to to Loki?

Lara Taylor 17:00
No, he only sees himself die

Josué Cardona 17:01
up to when thanos kills him

Lara Taylor 17:03
and that’s when the reel ends.

Josué Cardona 17:06
Yeah. So we don’t know that the events of this show. They technically happen out of time.

Lara Taylor 17:14
Everything in the TVA is out of time. It is out of time. Yeah,

Josué Cardona 17:18
yeah, exactly. So we don’t know when

Link Keller 17:20
it’s Quantum Time. It’s where Ant Man was hanging out.

Josué Cardona 17:24
Kind of that’ll be further explained in a

Lara Taylor 17:27
in a future movie and movie.

Josué Cardona 17:28
Yeah, but but you can’t, you can’t, with certainty say that the events in endgame were because they were decided by Kang. Like,

Link Keller 17:40
I mean, what what I, in order to have this like make sense. For me, I have separated some of these ideas that they tried to just mush together I the multiverse, they showed layers, layers layers there, there’s depth here, I’m going to assume that any timeline that they are talking about is within one layer. And so for me, it makes more sense if he who remains isn’t taking all of the multi verses and squishing them down into one where he’s like, now I’m in control and everything saved, I think he builds up a wall, and basically is keeping everybody else out of his one perfect loop where everything goes nicely, and nobody else comes in.

Lara Taylor 18:38
And I think that’s accurate, because the way they they visualized it is when everything starts branching, right? It’s like cracks in the wall.

Link Keller 18:48
Right? And I loved the imagery of that, because it reminded me so much of looking at like neuron scans of how neurons fire and how they connect to each other and lighting up like that. It’s like, it’s so pretty, so much prettier than just the one big loop. Boring.

Lara Taylor 19:07
We want options. I think I think that’s a general statement. In link’s life options. options are better than not.

Link Keller 19:18
how Dare you, don’t ever make me choose.

Josué Cardona 19:23
So if that’s if that’s true, the nerd of me wants to keep arguing this. But but it doesn’t really it doesn’t really matter. Because I think you’ve eventually you get to the point where you can’t prove that the events in the movie, we don’t know which timeline they were actually on. So if they existed outside of the sacred timeline that Kang was doing, then that doesn’t mean that the one the events in that movie in that timeline are the ones that we saw later. And because of time, it’s it’s just it’s just we don’t we don’t know, because the MCU has a number of them yet, and by the time we get to endgame and endgame. They’re more multiple timelines and people cross over from one to the other like Gomorrah is from another timeline. Right? The one that the one that’s now and this one, she’s from a completely different timeline. So those are things that we could argue. But I think

Lara Taylor 20:16
we can also say it’s not, I guess you could say it’s not meaningless, because everything is possible, like at the end of this, everything is possible. Everything that has ever could happen, or you would want to happen does happen and everything you don’t want to happen does happen, just because of all the branches on all the timelines. It’s it’s infinite.

Josué Cardona 20:39
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, assuming that the movies that we saw everything was because king wanted it to be that way. That and then in a way is like, oh, the he had a preference for that. And that’s why that happened. Still doesn’t mean that the other versions didn’t happen. But the but the idea that, like, oh, like, we basically are making fun of how not powerful the Infinity Stones are, how can you go back and see Thanos as a threat or see him as anything, you know, but like, the small and insignificant, I think it’s because we’re seeing the personal stories and the struggle of all those people, right? Like, it’s like, you can you can, you can always make an argument that, like, dogs don’t matter, because, you know, there’s more people or

Lara Taylor 21:25
you can never make an argument that dogs don’t matter.

Josué Cardona 21:28
cats don’t matter.

Lara Taylor 21:29
Yes. they do

Link Keller 21:30
[whispers] take that back

Josué Cardona 21:31
Right. Like you can be like, the solar system is more foreign light, like the sun is more important than than the Earth, like, you can keep scaling up as much as you want. And then, you know, you scale here and there’s, there’s so much Oh, you know, these, this one employee doesn’t matter because the company matters more like all of that, you know, it’s hard,

Link Keller 21:48
everything is meaningless if you back up far enough, okay? Everything,

Lara Taylor 21:52
everything.

Josué Cardona 21:53
Okay? I’ll tell you when I had that existential moment happened to me at the end of the men in black, the first movie like that, that I was, I don’t know how young I was in that movie came out, but it blew my mind. Because they just do I don’t know if you remember, right, if you haven’t seen this, the the end of the movie just zooms out of the earth, and then keeps zooming out and zooming out and zooming out and then you like, see the galaxy, and then you like, see a version of the universe and keep zooming out. And then it’s a marble. And there’s just these aliens like playing with marbles like your entire, that you are just an immeasurable speck inside a children’s play toy. Right. And I was like, whaaaaa what is this feeling?

Lara Taylor 22:44
and I think that’s similar to the the actual existential crisis I had were thinking like, at the end of this, it’s not that everything is meaningless. It’s just like, I am one person in this multi multiverse like, How can this be the only timeline right? All the things happen? I’ve seen enough multiverse shows of actually feel like that’s the truth that like, there is not one way of doing it. But somewhere on another world and another universe like I don’t know, I decided to not be a therapist. Which Josué was hoping for me.

Josué Cardona 23:23
Come on, come on. Don’t Don’t say that. Don’t say you put the therapy in Geek Therapy. What are you talking about?

Lara Taylor 23:29
I know, right? I literally

Josué Cardona 23:33
I mean, there’s, there’s there’s a lot there. I mean, I like the the metaphor of of multi versus like, what are the different possibilities? Can you even imagine different possibilities because sometimes we cannot see different outcomes. Sometimes we only see negative outcomes, sometimes we’re not able to only see positive outcomes. I think it’s a fun activity to be like, imagine a multiverse like what are different possibilities that could happen and that could that could help inform different ways for you to again just envision and prepare or or be optimistic or be more careful I think we do versions of that and I like that metaphor

Lara Taylor 24:11
I also like the the idea of the variants right and having different versions of yourself for different situations. I think it’s been I loved all the different Loki’s all of them. What everyone’s favorite Loki Yeah,

Josué Cardona 24:26
what’s your favorite Loki?

Lara Taylor 24:28
alligator loki.

Link Keller 24:29
alligator loki!!

Lara Taylor 24:31
You croaky you’re just like did

Josué Cardona 24:34
you know what

Link Keller 24:35
he’s perfect he’s green, he’s got horns

Josué Cardona 24:39
I’m a little disappointed in in both of you because

Lara Taylor 24:43
who’s your favorite Loki?

Josué Cardona 24:44
Disney just Disney just like designs this thing right

Lara Taylor 24:48
for us to buy things

Josué Cardona 24:49
for you to buy thing and you just I’m

Lara Taylor 24:50
about to go buy a polo shirt with alligator Loki is the worst one because Yeah. Wow. Also, throw was also in the show.

Josué Cardona 25:01
So now ragging voiced by Chris Hemsworth. Yeah,

Lara Taylor 25:10
yeah. Who’s your Who’s your favorite Loki?

Josué Cardona 25:15
My favorite Loki? He’s gotta be the Richard grant run the old Loki.

Link Keller 25:21
Old Loki is fantastic. Yeah, and kid loki was really cool too. I liked I liked all all three of them.

Josué Cardona 25:28
Yeah, I mean, probably Sylvie’s best. I think Sylvie was my favorite loki. I like Sylvie a lot. And

Link Keller 25:36
i like sylvie a lot too.

Josué Cardona 25:37
Yeah, there’s,

Link Keller 25:39
I gotta be honest, so y’all, I’m really really annoyed. And you’re all like the place at the end of the universe. At the end of time, where we send, we send all the pruned, things, all of the things that we don’t like go there. And you know what, it’s full of Lokis. It’s just lokis it’s mostly lokis out there. That’s all we got here. It’s just loki

Lara Taylor 26:07
and the Philadelphia project

Link Keller 26:12
is like they have all these lokis all these lokis there’s only one woman Loki only allowed to be one, not like that. I was I was mad about it. one black loki, one animal Loki, one woman Loki and then 4000 white lokis.

Lara Taylor 26:33
I think a lot and I think there is a point there’s a point of that like the Disney made a big deal about Loki being gender fluid and it is on Loki’s paperwork at the tva that he’s gender fluid but nobody’s seen a Loki in a female form

Josué Cardona 26:57
what do you mean?

Link Keller 26:57
but he asked he asked like hey, I’m here in this like Loki city like haha fun times everybody. This is not weird at all. Anybody else seen girl Loki? And they’re like Wow, that’s so weird. Never heard of that. not a fan, not a fan of that

Lara Taylor 27:15
Right? I want to also think and also thinking about like, they like they didn’t even put the point is Loki can take many forms as a single person. So like none of them took a female form? None of them? But that’s that’s one of my, my criticisms. I like the show.

Josué Cardona 27:38
I mean, technically, we don’t know how many Loki’s died before all the ones that are there. There may have been many female ones before and just the ones that are currently alive never. It’s true when it gets when you start talking about being out of time

Link Keller 27:54
okay, but if if female Lokis all got eaten and it’s only male Loki is that survived. That’s a sexism

Josué Cardona 28:03
in a more in a perceived in this moment in time in

Link Keller 28:07
Alioth is a mysogynist I’m just kidding. I love Alioth. I thought Alioth looked great. I loved the like, vaguely like elephant seal snoot he had Oh, very cool that I Episode Five when they were in the void lands Alioth’s domain that whole episode i thought was fantastic.

Lara Taylor 28:31
He’s gonna he’s gonna stab a cloud

Link Keller 28:35
stab a cloud.

Lara Taylor 28:36
I’m gonna stab a cloud

Josué Cardona 28:38
so loki they talked about how lokis are the something like low key is always lose is something I said. And later on it was lokis always survive. Right? There was I’m I’m still thinking about that. Like how just adaptable lokis are you’ve got to assume that there are different versions of if anything is possible than anything is possible, right? But I liked the idea that maybe Loki is more adaptable than other people right? Like, it’d be Loki like there’s all these different versions of Loki because Loki is a special character like there wouldn’t there would never be an alligator. Steve Rogers because Steve Rogers Ain’t that adaptable? He’s just like, you know, he is basic is what I’m saying. Right? Right. We know

Link Keller 29:32
aligator loki he ate a neighbor’s cat that’s like the thing that how it got pruned was just like it was Steve Roger’s alligators Steve Rogers’ pet cat.

Josué Cardona 29:45
Yeah, was it a full alligator world or was it just it was Loki

Link Keller 29:50
i do like that that Loki you know, God of chaos. a trickster.

Lara Taylor 29:56
God of mischief

Link Keller 29:57
like like is his true Power is that he he survives. And that totally fits in with what you were talking about earlier Josué about how are our main loki sort of drifting around like I don’t really know what’s going on and sort of moving with the flow as he gets more information he changes his direction and that feels very much like adaptability survivability. I’m gonna get through this minute by minute I’m like scanning tactical pat downs and figuring out what’s going on. Cuz Loki this guy is definitely going to get out of this situation maybe not looking cool or with any dignity but I will be surviving it

Josué Cardona 30:43
there’s a there’s a part of this and i think i think then Loki can be very relatable for when talking about like lack of consistency trouble with like self image identity, like, what is a Loki? Who is a Loki? Um,

Lara Taylor 31:01
we are all loki

Link Keller 31:02
okay. So this is this is this is my biggest complaints is that

Josué Cardona 31:07
bring it

Link Keller 31:08
There is the implication of a romance between Loki and Sylvie. And they did not use that as an opportunity to talk about learning to love yourself and his relationship to himself and they turned it into just like a regular ass romance. And it fell very flat for me. And I was personally offended that he didn’t have like a moment of being like, I trust myself because they got close to it. They got close to it with he who must not be named, and he said it to Sylvie, which undermines it a little bit more but saying it to her is like do you think you can trust him? Do you think you can trust anybody? And and having that be like, it’s not just saying that to Sylvie, he’s saying it to Loki too

Josué Cardona 31:56
like, what is it? He says? Look, he says you don’t trust anybody and I can’t be trusted. So. So like we’re, we’re at a standstill here. There’s no way there’s no way out of this one.

Lara Taylor 32:11
Yeah,

Josué Cardona 32:11
I didn’t I didn’t I feel differently about the romance, because I too,

Link Keller 32:17
I feel like they shouldn’t have done it. But if they were going to do it, it should have been a very thinly veiled metaphor for self love

Lara Taylor 32:24
i think it was thinly veiled. Because, I mean, I’m biased, I see it that way. Because I’m looking for things like that and metaphors to use with with clients and people in my life. But I saw it that way. I called it from the beginning that this is him trying to find himself and trying to love himself because he started he felt lost, so lost. And he does find himself. And this that there’s a version of himself that he could love.

Josué Cardona 33:01
I was hoping for a more explicit acceptance of myself through through. That didn’t happen. But the way I see it, there was no clear romance either. Like it never committed to either is the way that it is the way that I felt it. I was like, oh, like, what is it? You never it never gets to a point. Right? Like, had they like had a sex scene? or something? I don’t know. Depends, huh? Even if they would have said like there wasn’t it didn’t feel romantic. To me, it didn’t feel romantic. Like I think I think they kind of left it

Lara Taylor 33:43
say there was a dating blanket.

Link Keller 33:46
They tickled the romance in the end of the world moment where they were literally setting that up is like them being emotionally intimate with each other was such a big deal that it showed up even though it was during an apocalypse where nothing should show up.

Josué Cardona 34:05
Yeah, but somebody who admitted in the first episode that basically the reason why he treats other people badly is because he hates himself to come to the point where like, he held hands with another version of himself. I feel like was enough to the universe

Lara Taylor 34:20
and felt like felt empathy for another version of himself. Like he he heard her story and felt for her more than he felt for his own story. Yeah, his own life.

Josué Cardona 34:33
Yeah. Again, the way the way for me it was it never went into. It never felt romantic enough for me to think oh, this is a romance. So because I wanted the the self acceptance self love piece of it to be there. That’s I feel like that more than anything else. And towards the end there was I feel like there was a degree of understanding which is different of that moment of like This version of you can’t trust anybody I can’t be trusted that there was some clarity there and and there was still conflict at the end if you if you see all of the pieces of Loki as being Loki at odds with himself right that you arguing with yourself different versions of you inside of you trying to decide what to do I think I think there’s there’s tons and one I’m glad that they never took it far at least again I probably other people I’m sure see it the same way as you do link where it was like oh no why did they do that but I don’t I don’t feel like it was it was it was that I don’t think it went far enough for me to feel like they took away the self love self acceptance part just my opinion

Lara Taylor 35:51
yeah there’s still an argument to be made though.

Josué Cardona 35:57
I’m sure we can you can argue either way. Yeah.

Lara Taylor 36:00
Or you can we can extrapolate like, what would it be like if it was enough for you or what or whatever?

Link Keller 36:06
Well, Josué if you if you feel like it did get to that point, do you do you think that at the end Loki has achieved like some sort of breakthrough where he he does love himself that he does trust himself

Josué Cardona 36:25
I think that over the course of the story, he learned a lot about himself by meeting and interacting with different pieces of Loki’s self right like like, like without trying to see the the main loki as the loki, right like trying to see all the lokis kind of interacting with each other I think I think there were highs and lows I think there were that that was constantly changing and they were in they were learning to

Link Keller 36:50
pick one Loki as the Loki it’s got to be old Loki right he’s He’s the oldest one

Josué Cardona 36:55
my favorite Loki

Link Keller 36:57
that I really if we are extrapolating the the Loki and Sylvie as as Loki learning to love other aspects of Loki, him spending time in the void with old Loki and kid Loki. and aligator Loki was also reflective of that and the fact that although they had the the joke where they all betrayed each other kid Loki and old Loki didn’t participate in that aspect. And it really seems like old Loki that was not his vibe at all anymore. Like he had like learned past it. And that aspect of like learning to be like it’s not really my jam anymore. That was the thing that got him pruned is because like no, actually, we need Loki to be obsessed with this thing. Well, you get another opportunity for him to like, like, wow, okay, I respect and appreciate and love. This piece of me also very much focused on sylvie though,

Josué Cardona 37:57
right? If they were all pieces of you, right? Let’s just assume that by the end of this, they’re all kind of fighting it out. And they they’re like, okay, these are the pieces that we’re gonna have. You would know, like we all do, we can tap into different pieces of ourselves at different moments. I think that just to recognize that he is capable of these different things would would lead to know that oh, I can actually I mean, they they they’re explicit about this. When Sylvie says like, I’m gonna enchant, I’m gonna do the enchantment like I don’t know how she’s like, if, if I can do it, you can do it like you’re capable of it. This is something that you can do, right? That’s the learning next or something yourself. Yeah. No, no, no.

Lara Taylor 38:36
Like she literally even yourself. But like,

Josué Cardona 38:42
in you, right? It’s in you to be able to do this because because I can do it because I am you. So we were all capable of like, again, if you can bring it out.

Lara Taylor 38:51
You can even look at old Loki. Like his he wanted to stay out of everything. That’s why he was pruned. Right? He stayed out of everything. And just he was over it. So he knows what he got involved

Link Keller 39:03
he tried to come back.

Lara Taylor 39:05
Oh, right.

Link Keller 39:06
When he tried to come back like they were cool with him self isolating is when he tried to reintegrate with the timeline that they were like, Nope, can’t have like self reflective loki back on the

Lara Taylor 39:18
right, right. Right.

Josué Cardona 39:19
Where Who? Which one?

Lara Taylor 39:21
old loki

Josué Cardona 39:22
when old loki he tried to go back in that timeline,

Link Keller 39:24
he would he would i watched this earlier he he says that he isolated his past story because he realized all of the problems in his life that he was the common thread and so he self isolated as a way to protect other people and protect himself. And then he says that he missed he missed Thor and he wanted he wanted to know if anybody missed him. And just that, that choice of being like, actually, I don’t want to be completely isolated. The TVA was like, No, no, no, no, no, no.

Josué Cardona 39:57
No, let’s TVA the villain. You know Just because somebody noticed that they were the bad guys doing the bad things but it was a sad story but it shows that like you know it shows again that if if all of that is possible within Loki then now now he knows that all of those things are are possible

Lara Taylor 40:18
he can do any of those things and any number of other things possibly because the possibilities are all there

Link Keller 40:23
i don’t know it’s just that that if I can do it you can do it thing didn’t sit well with me

Josué Cardona 40:31
but why why though

Link Keller 40:32
because in the next episode when they are having their meeting with he who remains and then fight each other the outcome of that it just it seems like the writing it wanted both to be like these are these are lokis they just look different but they are the same Loki is Loki is Loki they just have different face paint on and that’s the only change but then also they have their own experiences they have their own skill sets. Introducing the alligator like literally like does alligator Loki have magic if if Sylvie was holding alligator Loki’s tale because she like psychically connect with him and teach him how to do magic like

Lara Taylor 41:21
I also suppose with an infinite number of things maybe there’s a Loki that doesn’t have magic

Josué Cardona 41:28
okay

Link Keller 41:29
it just it felt it felt like they wanted to have that line that moment where Sylvia’s like no Loki Believe in yourself. And so they did it

Josué Cardona 41:39
right you didn’t know she said

Link Keller 41:41
it I can do it. So you can do it. No. But it didn’t it just it didn’t land well for me. it fell

Josué Cardona 41:51
Because at the end I mean right if you there’s different ways to see it going the opposite direction of lara or what you’re saying of like anything is possible. Like sure, but like if if these are the ones that have survived and have until the end they were the were the the kid loki at the alligator like I don’t know what was so insightful about you know, like, what incredible qualities the alligator Loki had that he was able to survive.

Lara Taylor 42:16
I mean he eats people’s hands.

Josué Cardona 42:18
Yeah, but I mean again I’m totally now I’m just making stuff up right but it could have just been like look, I’m I’m weaker and I need help and I need to be carried and that that part of like that version of Loki right is is also a survival

Lara Taylor 42:31
maybe the other all the other Loki is we’re just as fascinated with alligator Loki as we are.

Josué Cardona 42:37
Right so so so like, that’s a sort of, that’s a version of Loki that could survive, right? Like these are the like, if you if you look at it, like these are the best versions, these are the versions that that made it to the end, the rest were so self destructive that they actually destroyed each other. But these like when they came together, they support each other they created like these pieces that create his his personality or who he is or what he can tap into. These are the healthier versions of them. At the end. I think it’s still like it’s a very different life experience of

Lara Taylor 43:07
the healthier versions of him that got caught.

Josué Cardona 43:13
They got caught

Lara Taylor 43:14
by the TVA because not everyone’s been pruned yet.

Josué Cardona 43:19
Again, time it’s complicated, I can I can argue that I can argue with that, like seven different ways. But But we playing with what we have, right? Like, we have 20 different lokis, right, let’s just go with the 20 that we have. Right? Some of them are just like the bad ones stuck together the good ones stuck together and in the end, right like I don’t know,

Lara Taylor 43:41
war of the lokis

Josué Cardona 43:42
we can we can we can discuss that right? I mean, well, the bad ones were all fighting each other because they were all betraying each other. And the other ones like were able to survive longer boys Sylvie and Loki at the end. I still think it’s like there’s there was always that possibility right like, like they were they were capable of killing Kang and they were capable of of not they were like that that possibility exists within within this loki that were that were seen within Loki

Lara Taylor 44:13
and I think that one of the things you were talking about Loki is lost throughout the series and doing whatever anyone else wants him to do and he’s people pleasing and wanting to do that kind of at the end he finds himself because he wants to do the other thing not the thing that Sylvie wants to

Josué Cardona 44:32
i’m not convinced of that either. I don’t think he was doing like people pleasing. He was more surviving and just by changing

Link Keller 44:40
people, people pleasing IS a survival tactic,

Josué Cardona 44:43
its a survival tactic, but I don’t think that’s what he was doing. Always he was just adjusting and constantly changing throughout and and at the end. Yeah, I’m not I’m not convinced that he wouldn’t have killed Kang eventually.

Lara Taylor 44:58
Right But he but the thought that he used he disagreed with her. He wanted to let Hey, let’s just put a pin in it. Let’s think about this

Link Keller 45:06
I’ve received new information, I would like to reassess. And she’s like, No, I’ve been very consistent from the beginning. We are dismantling this bureaucracy to ashes. Like, was I not clear about that? Like, nothing has changed for me. no new information changes that idea. Well, it must be destroyed. Yeah. Which I agree with her. But

Josué Cardona 45:35
yeah, I mean, it can I like what would the elements that it gives us to play with, because you could say Sylvie was going off of maybe an emotional reaction? And loki was trying to be rational at that moment. You could.

Link Keller 45:53
I don’t. I think if we’re gonna frame Sylvie’s responses as emotional loki’s responses were also emotional. His we’re just focused on wanting to protect her.

Josué Cardona 46:07
Hmm, that’s also something we can play with. Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t see it that way. But that’s possible.

Link Keller 46:13
Yeah. You know, I love the idea of him, he found a piece of himself that he he was able to, like, open up to and be intimate with and and feel love if that’s where it’s going. closeness, at least trust

Lara Taylor 46:29
empathy,

Link Keller 46:30
empathy, all these feelings and, and wanting to protect not just her as an object of those feelings, but also wanting to protect like himself as like, I’m capable of feeling these things now. And wanting to like, let’s pump the brakes, because all of a sudden, like Actually, I like this. This is cool and good. Maybe.

Josué Cardona 46:57
Maybe, yeah.

Link Keller 46:59
Yeah,

Josué Cardona 47:00
that’s possible too. I really liked the show.

Link Keller 47:05
It was very, it was very interesting. To spend too much time trying to make sense of multiverse-zes and timelines that makes my brain real itchy but visually fantastic show oh my god I loved everything looked great. The the TVA the design of the TVA was so good oh my god the detailing on their their little fucking sewed down callers on their shirts. Oh, right. I hope that takes off because that looks very sharp.

Lara Taylor 47:40
And they never have to worry about them like folding over and getting a weird when you iron them like perfect.

Josué Cardona 47:47
I love I’m sure that you can buy any of those things. Immediately.

Lara Taylor 47:52
You probably can. I’m sure hopefully can I’m sure.

Josué Cardona 47:55
No.

Lara Taylor 47:57
Yeah. Yeah.

Josué Cardona 47:59
Any hopes first. Great. Yeah. Any hopes or thoughts for season two?

Lara Taylor 48:04
I’m very mad at their final after credit scene.

Link Keller 48:09
Yeah,

Lara Taylor 48:10
so mad I wanted

Link Keller 48:12
it hurt that hurt.

Lara Taylor 48:14
That hurt

Josué Cardona 48:15
why’d that hurt?

Link Keller 48:16
Because we had a whole six episodes of building emotional connection and caring and wanting something good to happen is like EEH you are all alone

Lara Taylor 48:26
wandavision and falcon and winter soldier got an after credit scene like why couldn’t Why couldn’t Loki get one? Does he not deserve one?

Link Keller 48:35
I mean, no,

Josué Cardona 48:35
he’s the only one getting a second season so far.

Link Keller 48:38
I heard and I did did not confirm if this is true. But I heard that originally it was supposed to be a 12 episode season and then they just cut it in two

Josué Cardona 48:47
COVID mess with a lot of things.

Link Keller 48:49
Yeah, I am. I am disappointed that the director is leaving. Um, she

Josué Cardona 48:56
said she said that, like she had always planned this far. That’s what that’s what I read the other day. She was like, No, I’m, I’m excited. Like this is I had committed to this it

Link Keller 49:07
just there there were a lot of there were a lot of scenes that to me, it felt very obvious that it was it was a woman director. And I really liked it and I responded well to it and so I am a little concerned that the next season will not have that kind of vibe. Oh, i’m worried they’re gonna bring in a dude and it’s gonna be really boring and it’s just gonna be Loki obsessed with trying to get back to Sylvie .

Lara Taylor 49:40
what if they bring in, people are saying they should bring in Taika Waititi

Link Keller 49:46
I mean, in my opinion, give Taika everything. But that’s not reasonable.

Josué Cardona 49:55
My concern is that it moves away from everything that we just talked about that It made it to the show interesting, and then somehow makes it a Marvel fight scene. Right? It’s like the next six episodes are just it’s I mean kind of like what happened with wandavision right it’s like at first and then it hits a point where it’s like okay now we’ve got two visions fighting each other and we got witches fighting each other and flying in the air and it’s like the other stuff is just takes a backseat to all of that. Right I hope I hope it doesn’t lose. What makes Loki Loki but it most likely will

Lara Taylor 50:33
well and who knows where it’s going to pick up. Since we were getting going to be getting it after like multi verse of madness and a lot of other things which I’m really excited about. I’ve seen so many like speculations about how wandavision ties in with some of the things that were in Loki and how that’s gonna tie into multiverse and, and even

Link Keller 50:58
Ant Man!

Josué Cardona 51:02
Spider Man, everything Everything is about the multiverse now, I mean moving forward.

Lara Taylor 51:08
Yeah, we’re going cosmic and eternals. Right.

Josué Cardona 51:10
Oh, eternals is cosmic? I don’t know. I don’t know how multiversal that will be. It’s not a word. Yeah.

Lara Taylor 51:17
But Loki was a lot of fun. I agree with Link, like, the multiverse and time travel stuff like, explodes my brain. And I think sometimes things get missed a lot of the time for me, but I think it’s these kind of conversations are good to have. So I’m like, Oh, yeah, that thing did happen.

Josué Cardona 51:37
Although you are on the right track in terms of like, when you were saying like, well, anything is possible, right? It’s like, absolutely. That’s why characters never stay dead in comic books. Like that’s

Lara Taylor 51:47
exactly.

Josué Cardona 51:47
They can come up like because anything is possible. They can. I’ll bring this up. I don’t think I’ve brought this up on the show before but there is a run of the Avengers, where basically, the multiverse stops expanding and starts contracting into itself.

Lara Taylor 52:04
is that secret war? No, that’s when the multi versus like, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nevermind. Yeah.

Josué Cardona 52:13
I mean, they may be around there may be related. But the thing is, it says it’s like collapsing with each with itself until multiverses start crashing into each other basically. And it was a like, this moral dilemma of like, what do we what do we do about it? And basically, the Illuminati in that in that series, right? Like, they’re controlling events so that everything moves to that. Our Earth the prime one, right is, is is the last one to die. Like, they’re literally like setting it up so that other versions of themselves die, and it’s fascinating. It’s pretty cool. I don’t I’m willing. I bet they’ll do anything that was a successful comic book run. At this point. They’ll make it into a movie or, or a TV show. So I wouldn’t be surprised

Lara Taylor 52:59
that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Josué Cardona 53:02
Yeah, yeah. They’re taking Yeah, the most popular things and putting them

Lara Taylor 53:07
and they are putting a few things that are they’re less popular, or at least I haven’t heard about on like, I’d never read anything about the eternals or Shang-Chi. or

Josué Cardona 53:22
Miss America. Who can punch through universes?

Lara Taylor 53:25
I’ve read all of America.

Josué Cardona 53:26
You have okay.

Lara Taylor 53:27
Yeah.

Josué Cardona 53:28
Okay.

Lara Taylor 53:28
Yeah, that’s gonna be really cool. Yeah, really fucking cool. I

Josué Cardona 53:31
can’t believe I can’t believe that. That definitely falls in the character of kind of obscure, more obscure character. Yeah,

Lara Taylor 53:39
yeah. That was when she got her own book. I was like, Yes. And I was very sad that it was such a short arc. Yeah, like she goes to Sotomayor University. Like,

Josué Cardona 53:51
yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, I’m down for Hispanic character who can punch

Lara Taylor 53:58
Hispanic Hispanic Alien Hispanic, queer aliens can punch through punch holes through universes? Yeah, absolutely.

Josué Cardona 54:07
Yeah. The Doctor Strange is like, I need somebody to help me travel through universes. And that’s a person. Yeah. Can’t wait. Oh, okay. All right. Well, good. Good talk.

Lara Taylor 54:21
Good talk.

Josué Cardona 54:21
So there’s, there’s a lot. I think there’s tons. We should definitely do. For this.

Lara Taylor 54:27
Yeah. Episode by episode. There is so much. Yeah, I think Facebook groups had a lot of good conversations about things that they’ve used with clients. Yeah. And I think I want to steal some of those and put them in the library.

Josué Cardona 54:41
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And again, we as usual, we saw things a little differently and sometimes very differently, and that’s, that’s good. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter.

Lara Taylor 54:53
Anything’s possible.

Josué Cardona 54:54
I don’t know. Like it matters to you. It’s how you view it. Like it says something about you that you saw it as And why and it says something about me that I saw it a certain way.

Lara Taylor 55:02
Exactly. Yeah. And then we can communicate, communicate it.

Josué Cardona 55:06
Here we argue. But yeah, technically I mean that the idea is to help us.

Lara Taylor 55:10
Arguing is communicating, just not very effectively.

Josué Cardona 55:14
I don’t know. I don’t know. We can we can we can discuss that another episode or argue it. Join our community spaces. Tell us what you thought of this episode. links in the show notes. For more Geek Therapy, visit Geek therapy.org. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to geek out and do good and we’ll be back next week.

Link Keller 55:37
mm I’ve got The Hunger only hands can satisfy.

Josué Cardona 55:44
I’m editing that out for sure.

Josué Cardona 55:48
Geek Therapy is a 501 c three nonprofit organization dedicated to making the world a better place through geek culture. To learn more about our mission and become a supporter, visit Geek therapy.org

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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Characters / Media

Loki / Loki
Vikings
Sylvie / Loki
Avengers: Endgame
Mobius / Loki
Kang / Loki
Men in Black
The Matrix
Wandavision
Falcon and Winter Soldier
The Eternals
Shang-Chi
Doctor Strange

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Themes / Topics

Conversation Topics:

* Destiny/Fate
* Free will
* Self-Love/Self-Acceptance
* Change
* Consequences
* Death
* Feeling alone
* Finding Oneself/Identity Development
* Moral dilemma
* Power struggle
* Standing up for oneself
* Trust
* Redemption
* Sacrifice for others
* Taking responsibility for one’s actions

Relatable Experience:

* Clarity/Understanding
* Death
* Fighting
* Existential Crisis
* New Life Event (New Rules)
* Trauma