Everything You Need to Know About the TVA in Loki Season 2

Does the TVA make sense?

Marvel's Loki is home to many mind-bending ideas and events to be pondered, but where do you start when so much of it is quite so strange? Well, the time traveling, timeless, mysterious organization run in large part by an AI clock that's at the center of both seasons of the whole show seems like an excellent place to start. And what better place to start than with understanding the MCU's time travel?

Time Travel in the MCU

HOW DOES TIME-TRAVEL WORK IN THE MCU?

To put it simply, time travel is confusing in the MCU. Bruce Banner/The Hulk states that "changing the past doesn't change the future," (Avengers: Endgame) and Endgame follows that logic. But it is possible the way that this makes sense is if the Avengers travelled to other universes that were essentially the exact same as theirs. The TVA prunes branches that deviate too far from the Sacred Timeline, the one we know as the main universe of the MCU, so if the Avengers jump to an alternate universe, their actions can't change their past because it simply isn't their past.

This follows well with how everyone's favorite time-controlling authority travels about different timelines. They don't exclusively travel through time and space, they travel between many different universes, AKA timelines, and prune the ones that are deviating too far from the sacred timeline. This is also something like the function of the Loom (as explained in Loki season 2, episode 6), which seems to ensure the sacred timeline is followed.

So, we have an understanding of what the Time Variance Authority does and how, but such a massive operation needs to have a base of some kind, so where is that?

Where is the TVA?

WHERE DOES THE TVA EXIST?

We need to figure out just where the TVA exists. The simple answer is "outside of time," as the show mentions, but what exactly does that mean? Especially given Loki Season 2's addition of Loki time slipping while within the TVA. A potential understanding of the TVA's temporal location comes from a key piece of information given throughout the series multiple times, which is that "time passes differently in the TVA."

The difference is actually that time doesn't pass in the TVA, but well...it also does. This means that while there is a past, present, and future, the only way to get to them in the TVA is to be moved there because it doesn't flow on its own. One method to move through time in the TVA could be Loki's time slipping. Oddly, time slipping like that is much more in line with traditional time travel, like that of Back to the Future, or Doctor Who. This may be the case because the TVA exists outside of standard time. That explains why they can physically see the timelines, and how time works differently within the TVA, particularly the idea that people don't age in there and the fact that the only possible time travel is time slipping, not through TemPads, the show's go-to time travel devices. Loki's time slips show that time works more like we normally expect in fiction, where changing the past changes the future.

It is also possible that anyone who enters the TVA is affected by it indefinitely, explaining how none of the TVA's hunters or any agents age, even if they spend time on branches. This would also explain how Loki could time slip outside of the TVA and have it work the same as it did within the TVA, despite the difference between that type of time travel compared to that introduced to the MCU in Avengers: Endgame.

Why is the TVA?

WHAT DOES THE TVA DO?

All that seems to remain (aside from of perhaps the man himself, He Who Remains) is what the TVA actually does. For the most part the answer is simple, they prune. Or at least, they used to. In the days before Loki season 2, they pruned branches from the Sacred Timeline before they "red-lined," represented as a branch crossing a red line on their monitoring stations, which seems to represent a point where a branch splits into multiple other branches, making them far more difficult to clean up as they exponentially increase.

What happens when a branch is pruned isn't the most clear thing about the show, but it seems that pruning a branch is, at best, the same as pruning a person, thus sending them to the end of time, a place and time explored in season 1, episode 5 of Loki.

However, when a branch is too far gone, it may be that that is when the branch is simply annihilated rather than sent anywhere. This seems to be the case because large objects, such as ships and pyramids, are seen at the end of time, but during season 2 of Loki, there is quite a dilemma about pruning the branches because that would be killing billions. Surely if pruning just sent them to the end of time, they could go pick them up to help, but that is never presented as an option.

That about settles it for the overview of the TVA. The organization does make sense, but not in the clearest of ways, and that's half the fun of the show for some. Figuring out in what ways the TVA differs from traditional time travel, or whether it does at all, and how it exists in a world that already has a different type of time travel is just one of the things that makes the series incredibly thought-provoking.

On Pure Illogicality, our theories are indeed technically just theories, but they do bring us closer to the truth. The usefulness (and fun) of that is the whole reason this place exists. There is a lot more depth to this series than can be fully covered in one post, so be sure to check back in for more theories and information on not only the TVA, but any confusing and complex parts of your favorite movies and TV!