Warning! The following contains spoilers for the Loki episode "The Variant." Read at your own risk!
Loki fans probably didn't expect the God of Mischief to come face to face with the mysterious "lesser Loki" antagonist so soon in the series, much less for audiences to also get that huge reveal. It turns out the other variant Loki the TVA was hunting was actually Lady Loki! Or maybe that's just what we've been led to believe...
Listen, I know Marvel fans might be tired of theories that some character is actually another character in disguise, but there is already more than enough credible evidence to make me believe that Sophia Di Martino's Lady Loki is not actually Lady Loki. This character may truly be the Marvel character Enchantress, and I'll unpack not only why that could be the case, but what it could mean for the MCU at large if true.
How Loki May Have Accidentally Spoiled Lady Loki's True Identity
Marvel is typically careful about not leaking its own secrets to the public, but eagle-eyed viewers noted a pretty blatant sign that suggests Lady Loki isn't who we've been led to believe. While the second episode's English credits referred to actress Sophia Di Martino as "Variant," one of the international credit cards cited her name as "Sylvie." No, that's not just a translation of "variant" or "mischievous scamp." But it IS the name of a Marvel character that comic readers are likely familiar with.
It's speculated that Sylvie is short for Sylvie Lushton, who has meaningful ties to Loki in the Marvel universe. Once a normal American girl, Sylvie woke up one day with magical powers, and used them to pose as an Asgardian, taking on a persona similar in style to the already established Enchantress, Thor's nemesis Amora. Sylvie ended up taking the Enchantress mantle with powers that rivaled Amora, but the actual truth about her existence was much wilder.
Sylvie Lushton was indeed a human whose powers had been bestowed upon her by Loki. In the comics, Loki merely liked the idea of granting great power to a mere mortal, and was enthused by the chaos that could result from such an act. Obviously, the MCU always takes its own spin on things, but could it be that Lady Loki is actually Sylvie Lushton, with another Loki Variant as the true puppet master behind all the time-travel disasters seen so far?
Why Lady Loki Could Actually Be Sylvie The Enchantress
When it comes to laying out reasons why Lady Loki actually could be Sylvie Lushton's Enchantress, there are a couple to sort through. To start, she's capable of mental manipulation, which means she's totally able to control the minds of multiple people at once, as we saw her do in the latest episode of Loki. Not something that Loki himself is known for, otherwise he probably would have removed himself from his current mess.
Skeptics may say, "But she's rocking Loki's green aesthetic, so it's gotta be Lady Loki," and while the first part of that may be true, it's also true that Sylvie Lushton is known for her green costumes in the comic, and also has a crown thing going on as well. I mean, obviously the TV show's golden crown was meant to make the audience believe she's Loki, but she may very well just be posing as one of Asgard's most well-known deviants.
I'm not 100% sold on this Enchantress idea, admittedly, but that's largely because I've been burned by so many Marvel theories in 2021 already after WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. With that being said, that end-credits flub paired with what we know about Sylvie Lushton from the comics makes this argument quite a bit stronger than the rampant speculation that every character wearing a shade of red is actually Mephisto. And if Lady Loki is truly Enchantress, that reveal would be totally in line with another trend that spoiler-friendly Marvel Comic readers have been picking up on lately.
What Would This Mean For The MCU?
If Sylvie Lushton is indeed the true identity of Lady Loki, it would continue a trend that's been threaded through each of Disney+'s Marvel series thus far. WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and now possibly Loki have all introduced characters that, at some point or another, have joined the Young Avengers. (Here's I'm speaking of Wanda's possibly non-existent son William, a.k.a. Wiccan, and Isaiah Bradley, a.k.a. Patriot.) Don't forget we also have Hawkeye on the way, which is already guaranteed to add another YA member in Hailee Steinfeld's Kate Bishop, and America Chavez is coming to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
In true MCU fashion, it would appear as though Marvel Studios is trying to build a new super team right under our noses, but we're too savvy for their games! After all, why would an evil variant Loki bestow such powers to someone else if not as part of a plan to help in the presumably complicated process of completely destabilizing the sacred timeline. Such a plan would almost definitely take more than just a few well-placed timeline erasures, right? I'm not entirely sure, but we have another four episodes to go, so it would be a bit short-sighted for the show to have fully revealed the plan via the massive bout of chaos in "The Variant."
Provided Lady Loki is Enchantress, viewers may very well be witnessing both the end and beginning of an overarching plot devised by the Loki that we've been following so far. We've already been told by Mobius that time works a little differently in the TVA, so it wouldn't be crazy to think that Loki could very well be on a collision course with himself - literally himself, and not just another variant - that will ultimately lead to his escape, as well as potentially the most massive catastrophe in the existence of time. I mean, we already know Loki's central iteration isn't a fan of the idea that everything is pre-determined under the Time Keepers, and he doesn't have all of the emotional growth that Prime Loki had before his death, so is it really so crazy to believe he'd put a lot of effort into ridding himself of all that?
I can't speak to any of those theories with certainty, of course, but I do know that Loki premieres new episodes on Disney+ on Wednesdays at 3:00 a.m. ET. There are a lot of rumors regarding Loki floating around, and while I wouldn't take stock in a lot of them, they are fun to read up on just in case they are true. For example, read up on this theory that suggests two other big Marvel characters could be in trouble with the TVA down the road.
