Warning: Loki Season 2 SPOILERS are ahead!
The MCU’s original version of Loki may have died a brutal death at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War, but his variant from the Loki series accessible to Disney+ subscribers is finally and truly “burdened with glorious purpose,” albeit not the one he originally envisioned for himself. Falling into the latter category of the Season 2 finale’s wacky and emotional elements, Tom Hiddleston’s character capped off the season, and possibly the show as a whole since Season 3 is up in the air, by becoming the new guardian of the Marvel multiverse. Now Hiddleston himself has shared with CinemaBlend how he really feels about this Loki’s fate.
The actor chatted with our own Erik Swann following the arrival of the Loki Season 2 finale, titled “Glorious Purpose,” and along with giving clarity on his comments about concluding Loki’s journey and addressing whether he’d return to the MCU, Hiddleston opened up about how that “glorious purpose” line from 2012’s The Avengers has defined what we’ve seen from the character for more than a decade, starting off with the following:
I think the interesting thing is… And it's really going back to something that he learns across both seasons of this series, which is he's always defined himself by that iconic line. ‘I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.’ And the lesson, you know, this variant, the guy who picked up the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame – because, you know, Hulk took the stairs, or Tony [Stark] had a cardiac arrest – is ripped out of time and reality and processed by the TVA. And through his experiences with Mobius and with Sylvie and his relationships with them, he's given a second chance, because he's shown that his idea of a glorious purpose is fraudulent and meaningless, that he was destined to lose, to make others look good. There was no glory in it ever, and he's given a second chance. And the whole of these 12 episodes are actually about rethinking and redefining that sense of purpose.
Although this Loki went through the same journey we witnessed with his original counterpart in Thor and most of The Avengers, his life took a major detour when he grabbed the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame and fled the scene. Had the TVA not found him soon afterwards, he would’ve surely continue his antagonist lifestyle, but instead, he was thrust on a new life path that saw him making friends and, in the end, learning that he wasn’t meant to conquer, but rather protect the greater good.
Tom Hiddleston then brought up how he and other people on the Loki crew “talked a lot” about series a poems by T.S. Elliot called Four Quartets, with one of the poems being “about time and grief and the past, and making peace with the past so you can move forward through the present and into the future.” One specific line that captivated Hiddleston: “And what you thought you came for is only a shell, a husk of meaning, from which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled, if at all. Either you had no purpose, or the purpose is beyond the end you figured and is altered in fulfillment.” The actor then continued:
And your point is like, is it the throne he always wanted and is he on top? I think it's that he didn't realize… He would never have known that the purpose he thought he had was going to come in a different shape at a different time, and from a different lens. And so I think it's a kind of surprise to him that that is where he's supposed to be. So that's a long answer, but it's a really good question.
While Loki did end up destroying the TVA’s Temporal Loom like He Who Remains suggested, rather than just sit back and allow all branches off the Sacred Timeline to be destroyed, he instead used his magic to breathe new life back into these dying timelines and reform them in the shape of Yggdrasil, the Asgardian Tree of Life. It’s now up to Loki to ensure the safety of the multiverse, while the TVA has now rededicated itself to tracking down He Who Remains’ variants, i.e. the numerous versions of Kang the Conqueror. As Hiddleston pointed out, there’s no way this Loki could have predicted this is what his fate would be, and while it’s a lonely existence, at least he’s now found his purpose.
Given that we’re in the middle of The Multiverse Saga, and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars are among the biggest of the upcoming Marvel movies (though the former has lost Destin Daniel Cretton as its director), it seems likelier than not that we’ll reunite with Loki in the coming years. We’ll be sure to let you know if/when this is officially confirmed, but until then, keep track of the upcoming Marvel TV shows, starting with the entirety of Echo premiering on January 10, 2024.
