But the truth, if there’s any such thing to be found amidst Lokis, promises to be far more complicated as this most recent episode raises some interesting questions about identity and the qualities that make someone themselves.
In comparing the notes of their lives, there is a certain shared grief between the two, and in a fitting nod to the planet they reside on, a lamentation for the lives they could have had, and the loves they might have known.
This latter development is a significant step forward for the MCU, but also feels true to the core themes of the series as it reflects its themes about choice and the ways in which much of Loki’s past has been defined by others’ control of his narrative and defining him within a cage expectation.
Similarly, Sylvie’s comic book history, which significantly differs from her role in the MCU, is also defined by the role in which she is tasked to play, rather than what she chooses for herself.
It’s this reclamation that defined Kieron Gillen and Doug Braithwaite’s 2010 Loki-centric comic, Journey into Mystery, in which Loki is reborn as a child and has the opportunity to become something other than the villain his past self had spent his life being, despite his past-self, and darker reflection, Ikol, seeking to drive him back into the dark, to stop his story from being rewritten.
There are those whose personal experiences could speak better to this point than I could, but there is the potential for a transgender allegory in Sylvie’s reclaiming of herself, and refusal to be “dead named.” Her existence, and the terms through which she demands to be defined by suggest that Loki doesn’t always have to remain a Loki.