When Does 'Loki' Take Place In The MCU Timeline? - Thrillist

What does that mean for Loki, the character?

In his three film appearances that follow The Avengers—we're not counting Endgame, where he only appears in the "past"—Loki evolved from beloved villain into beloved antihero. By the time he's being strangled by Thanos in Infinity War, sacrificing himself for the good of the universe, he has earned the begrudging trust of his adoptive brother Thor, who he fought alongside in Thor: Ragnarok. Sure, there's your traditional sibling animosity, but, basically, Loki is a good guy.

It's crucial to understand that the more evolved Loki isn't who we're tracking in the show. This Loki in Loki is the one we knew in The Avengers, who thinks he is "burdened with glorious purpose," the one with designs for planetary domination and who thinks human beings are servants to his will.

"The great opportunity of the show was, there was that version of Loki that lived and then died at the hands of Thanos who had his own, I would say, complete quasi-redemptive arc," explained Waldron in an interview with Thrillist. "We have a different version of Loki—a guy who's still perhaps at his most arch, coming off of this defeat in the first Avengers. He's desperate and he's pissed off and a little bit humiliated. It was really important to all of us that we tell an entirely new story. That we break new ground with this character and do something entirely different. So I was glad to have perhaps a more moldable clay form of Loki in that 2012 version."

When does Loki take place?

After a very brief attempt to rule Mongolia, Loki is apprehended by agents of the Time Variance Authority, an institution with the sole purpose of ensuring that the one sacred timeline doesn't branch off into a chaotic multiverse. Essentially, Loki, having benefitted from a time-travel accident, is not supposed to be in Mongolia in 2012, and is labeled a variant, a.k.a. something the TVA needs to correct. The agents zap Loki to their headquarters, which exist in a sort of liminal space, where time moves differently.

When he's walking the brutalist halls of the TVA, it's unclear precisely when that's taking place, although we do know that Mobius and other agents, and eventually Loki, have the ability to hop around through time to eliminate other variants from pushing the sacred timeline off course. In the first two episodes, they stop in 16th century France, 19th century Oklahoma, 1980s Wisconsin, and other points in time. But it's still important to remember that this is the Loki plucked directly out of 2012's The Avengers. You can bet that more revelations about how this Loki and the TVA will tie back in with the larger MCU will be part of future episodes.