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Takes No Damage posted:Still a little confused / annoyed at Sylvie's motivations. All the other characters have been telling her for 1.5 seasons that she can't destroy the TVA because if she does all the threads of reality will unravel. She says she doesn't care about that and just wants to go live her life on her time branch................ that would be unraveled without the TVA. And now that the loom exploded and destroyed the TVA she was all Surprised Pikachu Face when her timeline started to unravel it's baffling and frankly a little annoying
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Nov 4, 2023 07:32
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Geez, who hasn’t had the Phoenix Force at this point? Kinda interesting though, I thought it was only interested in mutants.
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Nov 4, 2023 07:53
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I'm honestly quite suprised at the positive reviews, I loved series 1 but this one has been pretty poo poo. I hate the idea that Loki would go and work at a Mcdonalds in the US in 1980. She's a god. Like an actual god. With the power to go everywhere. Why the gently caress would you go there? I'm totally down with her wanting her own life now she's free but I don't feel like that specific life fits at all. I'm kinda annoyed that every single person in the TVA appears to be from the US as well, I guess that's not a big deal but it feels strange. Predestination paradoxes are boring to me and since it feels like what's going to happen is Loki will set up the original TVA I'm not that invested in that idea. I sorta get that the Loom has always existed but I feel like the entire series this time has lacked motivation for me. "The loom is going to blow up and the TVA is going to be destroyed! That's bad!" but the TVA existed to prune timelines so we'd only get the HWR timeline, so in theory it doesn't need to exist any more. So why do you want it to stay around? I guess to look after the Loom, this new thing that wasn't ever really mentioned before. I guess what I'm struggling with is motivations for the characters to do what they're doing. Loki has now spelled out that he wants to keep his friends which I guess makes sense but I really wish he'd said that before. And that they'd laid out in better terms what he wants to do with the TVA and what he thinks it's gonna do now there's no sacred timeline. I presume the next episode they'll tell us that the loom was created by man but has also always existed since the beginning of time so that's why everything's hosed without it. If they don't do that then it's really not going to make sense to me. I also know it's been said but really they could cut a lot of what we've seen and only have the last episode and this episode and I think that'd make it feel less meandering and Dr Who esque. I watch and enjoy loads of time travel media and so far this one's just being really boring whereas I enjoyed series 1 the most out of any of the marvel shows. I was so looking forward to this. Taear fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 09:44
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It's definitely weird that they could have seemingly be picked from any time or place in the universe yet they are all on Earth, in the US and lived in the "last" sixty years.
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Nov 4, 2023 11:05
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I really thought that when we started visiting everyone’s original places on the timeline we were actually going to get the reveal that Sylvie was never Loki / Asgardian and had been planted or set up or empowered by Kang or Miss Minutes as a scapegoat to more accurately match her comic counterpart being lied to and empowered as an “Asgardian”, but instead she was just back at McDonald’s with her memories intact for no reason whatsoever and goddamnit she is the worst loving character in the MCU.
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Nov 4, 2023 11:58
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Nikumatic posted:I really thought that when we started visiting everyone’s original places on the timeline we were actually going to get the reveal that Sylvie was never Loki / Asgardian and had been planted or set up or empowered by Kang or Miss Minutes as a scapegoat to more accurately match her comic counterpart being lied to and empowered as an “Asgardian”, but instead she was just back at McDonald’s with her memories intact for no reason whatsoever and goddamnit she is the worst loving character in the MCU. We just get given NOTHING about her. She's female Loki. Okay cool. But she's not is she? She's completely different to Loki. We don't know anything about her life (does she have a sister she hates) or what she's done or why she is who she is. It sucks poo poo when a lot of this is hinging on who she is
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Nov 4, 2023 12:15
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Sylvie's love for McDonalds is a Nexus event.
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Nov 4, 2023 13:23
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Gonna just spoiler all this. Maybe obvious, but I can't help but see Sylvie's anger and idealism vs Loki's "adult in the room" as a political message (I think somebody touched on this pages ago, BRD maybe?) Sylvie is correct that the TVA is responsible for countless atrocities, is in fact designed for that, and furthermore is a lie that relies on deceiving its members into believing they are doing the right thing as they prop up an unnecessary system that serves the machinations of the powerful few (kang(s)). Loki is correct that the TVA already exists for good or ill, and it's destruction has unknown, possibly apocalyptic consequences. That they should take control of it and use it to fix their current situation because they are the ones who are there and can do so, rather than chaos hail marying by casting it all down, leaving a power vaccuum along with those known and unknown consequences. The parallel to me is idealists condemning the massive systems we've built, accountable to nobody and far larger and more powerful than us. It took atrocities to build them and atrocities to maintain them. Along with the injustices and lies they are dooming the planet and despite the best intentions of many people there is no real incentive to correct... because if exists just to maintain stability while it grows forever. If fixing it is impossible than we should strive to cast it down. Meanwhile Loki is saying what if we use our power to make it better, make it work for good, which Sylvie very reasonably (correctly in the real world scenario IMO) believes is impossible. Loki has a point in the show, but in real life we're more at the point where the TVA is still willfully pruning everything, prepared to break every egg in eternity to preserve the only omelet they know, but the loom is going to explode anyway. Ultimately I'm glad the show does demonstrate (however heartwarmingly) the very human and understandable selfishness driving them to cling to the TVA. It's all moebious knows, an alternative is frightening. Loki finally feels at home and has friends through the TVA, and doesn't want to let that go (despite talking about it being their responsibility and the right thing to do). And we don't know if all of reality/every branch is doomed without the loom, but the one Sylvie wanted is so she's compelled to help maintain it. I also agree the ending might be that Loki "creates" the TVA, then Kang minutes and Rensselaer show up and take over, leading to the mind-wipes and leaving us right back at the start (but probably some additional consequence to move the MCU forward). I also think the parallel to our world is better if it turns out they should have just let the TVA stay gone and accept the consequences, as it's self justifying and creating the crisis itself. They do keep showing HWR saying he paved their way and opened every door, but who knows. Here's a dumb minor nitpick. TVA claims eternity, but what of infinity? They'd be pruning infinite planets and peoples for eternity, but we hardly see any of that. I understand the practical and narrative reasons why, but I had a lot of nerd posting momentum and had to get that out.
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Nov 4, 2023 14:31
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Taear posted:I'm honestly quite suprised at the positive reviews, I loved series 1 but this one has been pretty poo poo. I like it. It shows Sylvie is the real deal. She may be personally hurt by the TVA, but she wants nothing for herself but the simple liberty of a normal life. It's not an obstacle to her getting anything more than what she believes every single person is entitled to. The fact that she's powerful (a "god" even) and yet has no problem living a life as a McDonald's employee demonstrates her honesty and conviction. It reminds me how Thanos retreated to a solitary farming life after he completed his work. What he did may have been terrible, but when he used his power to destroy the stones and resolved to live and die in such a simple inconsequential life it demonstrated he meant what he said. Once he felt he had "fixed things", his own power and own existence were no longer important. I also liked the exchange where "brad" says "don't you think you deserve your own life?!?", and the tva commander, knowing she's prevented an impossible large number of people from doing just that, looks at him aghast and says "No!". She's a true believer, conflicted by her supposed mission and the consequences of her seeing it through. Thought that was great, especially considering the disturbing scene that follows.
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Nov 4, 2023 14:44
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BRJurgis posted:I like it. It shows Sylvie is the real deal. She may be personally hurt by the TVA, but she wants nothing for herself but the simple liberty of a normal life. It's not an obstacle to her getting anything more than what she believes every single person is entitled to. The fact that she's powerful (a "god" even) and yet has no problem living a life as a McDonald's employee demonstrates her honesty and conviction. That's just such a hugely insanely traditional right wing view that I can't bring myself to accept it. A life as a mcdonalds employee in the US in the 80s is awful, you've got so many other choices in the marvel universe, why the gently caress would you ever pick that? There's not some noble thing about scratching a subsistence existence out like that
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Nov 4, 2023 14:59
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Taear posted:That's just such a hugely insanely traditional right wing view that I can't bring myself to accept it. A life as a mcdonalds employee in the US in the 80s is awful, you've got so many other choices in the marvel universe, why the gently caress would you ever pick that? OK. Well, I disagree. Would it help if she worked at a co-op?
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Nov 4, 2023 15:01
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maybe Sylvie is living in a branched timeline where fast food workers have unionized so she’s making a living wage
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Nov 4, 2023 15:18
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I think those critiques are right, but this show has enough style and the last episode in particular was so much *fun* that I don't mind it as much. We'll see how they land it tho.
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Nov 4, 2023 15:28
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I think I’d understand Sylvies point of view better if she actually had her own plan to fix things. However, unless I missed something she knew everything was going to spaghetti into the void if the time loom didn’t get fixed but she still stubbornly goes “no everyone should be free” and disappears. Then she comes back because…. the thing she was told would happen actually happened? Her character just feels pointless and dumb right now and I hope they stick the landing cause a whole lot of nothing happened this episode if they don’t pull it off.
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Nov 4, 2023 15:51
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BRJurgis posted:Gonna just spoiler all this. I suspect the answer will not be this in the MCU, but in the comics Infinity and Eternity are different characters.
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Nov 4, 2023 15:53
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roffles posted:I think I’d understand Sylvies point of view better if she actually had her own plan to fix things. However, unless I missed something she knew everything was going to spaghetti into the void if the time loom didn’t get fixed but she still stubbornly goes “no everyone should be free” and disappears. Then she comes back because…. the thing she was told would happen actually happened? Her character just feels pointless and dumb right now and I hope they stick the landing cause a whole lot of nothing happened this episode if they don’t pull it off. Why would she know that though? BRJurgis posted:OK. Well, I disagree. Would it help if she worked at a co-op? No? Why not go to Asgard? It's the 80s, it's still there
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Nov 4, 2023 16:12
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I think the extent to which anyone knows what will happen is being overstated. Loki goes around warning about spaghettification, but when he meets Sylvie and she says to gently caress off, he very quickly concedes that he was doing this because he wanted his friends back. In other words he too was not confident that existence needed the TVA to keep existing. I mean, why would it? Presumably existence existed before the TVA and didn't spontaneously spaghettify. As it turns out something has happened and things will spaghettify if not managed, but I think we can take it as evidence that no one actually knew that would happen based on the fact that everyone acted like they didn't know it would. If this were real life there should have been more arguments about the pseudo science that made each scenario more or less plausible, but it seems like they cut any sort of discussion like that since it would all be technobabble anyway and stuck with the narrative/emotional reasons each Loki chose to believe what they did. Also, what we know of Sylvie is that she spent her entire life hiding in the ends of worlds. Did we ever learn when she stared running? I thought it was implied she was fairly young, but in any case for an Asgardian it was presumably a very, very long subjective time watching everything end and everyone you could possibly make a connection with dying. I can believe the novelty of continuity was enough to make even a "miserable" life appealing. She had coworkers who she would see the next day. She's not up for making something new or doing something self fulfilling- she doesn't have the confidence to do anything like that yet. And honestly, she probably had all the time in the world to write a novel or whatever. Time for herself isn't what she's been lacking. She's just enjoying a non-apocalyptic routine. At least that was my read on her. I didn't think it was a weird right-wing 'that's all a normal person deserves' kind of thing at all. Just something mundane but familiar to the audience. Eiba fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 16:18
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Sylvie just wants a comfortable, non challenging life where nothing is important enough to stress over.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:22
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IIRC Loki and Sylvie have mostly spent the season arguing about just the TVA blowing up/losing its power source, and whether its actually needed for fending off the threat of Kang variants emerging to attack the timelines like HWR claimed. The broken Loom also being an existential threat all its own, destroying all the timelines that are already currently being fed through it, has largely gone unstated by the characters. Even though as a viewer it's felt like something that should be obvious.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:29
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Taear posted:Why would she know that though? I feel the fact that being a mcdonalds employee in 1980s America or whatever isn't exactly kickin' rad is the point. She's not seeking personal power or luxury. She is ideologically opposed to what the TVA does, and has been hiding from/striking against it so long she probably doesn't know what to do beyond just exist without time cops hunting and deleting her. And as a God she certainly has different options and material needs than a wage slave. Imagine working customer service when you can mesmerize problem customers! roffles posted:I think I’d understand Sylvies point of view better if she actually had her own plan to fix things. However, unless I missed something she knew everything was going to spaghetti into the void if the time loom didn’t get fixed but she still stubbornly goes “no everyone should be free” and disappears. Then she comes back because…. the thing she was told would happen actually happened? Her character just feels pointless and dumb right now and I hope they stick the landing cause a whole lot of nothing happened this episode if they don’t pull it off. What I got from Sylvie is its enough to just say "this is wrong and must stop", even without a better alternative, even if things could be worse. A system that guarantees and validates itself by creating a situation where the lack of it have repercussions can always be defended with "it could be worse. Do you have a better idea?" Sylvie is saying wrong is wrong and not pretending to be able to build a better world beyond removing the wrong she sees. She's relented several times when shown a possibility of somebody improving things in a constructive way. I mean, God of mischief isn't far from God of chaos, and it makes great sense for any loki to see an all powerful eternal bureaucracy and say "nah". Not trying to be dismissive of these criticisms, but for my part I easily saw my way through them while watching.. Especially since I agree with sylvie. She rejects the cost and results of this system as a rule, and has to be convinced that it can be reformed into something good (and through seeing her own world dissapear, that it might be necessary). Is destroying the TVA worth mass spaghettification? We still don't really know! Yeah! BRJurgis fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 16:33
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Eiba posted:At least that was my read on her. I didn't think it was a weird right-wing 'that's all a normal person deserves' kind of thing at all. Just something mundane but familiar to the audience. Not "deserves" but "this is a good life to want to live" It feels like abandoning a system to step right into another just as bad one
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Nov 4, 2023 16:38
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Taear posted:Not "deserves" but "this is a good life to want to live" So capitalism (mcdonalds in this case) is the tva to my sylvie, and I'm ready to chance spaghettification. Just so you understand my perspective. But working at McDonald's in 1980s America is not just as bad as what her life had been previously, cmon. Putting aside the inequality and injustices of capitalism and the fact she's not a normal human, life in 1980s America is still a historical and geographic miracle by many measures.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:43
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I think the idea is Sylvie's history of being a time fugitive or whatever who's on the hunt for/being hunted by the ruler of time itself basically means that even the humble tedium of being a fast food worker in the midwest in the 80s seems like a nice piece of quiet also she's literally a chaos/mischief/lie/trickster god so i have to imagine she's able to pretty easily deal with any bullshit her manager might try to give her
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Nov 4, 2023 16:50
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Sylvie has the power to go anywhere and do anything. If she wanted to be queen of the Mongols she could. Instead she chose the most anonymously comfortable life she could.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:51
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gey muckle mowser posted:maybe Sylvie is living in a branched timeline where fast food workers have unionized so she’s making a living wage she's using her Loki powers to dip into the till
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Nov 4, 2023 17:00
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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > MCU TV: CIVIL WAR OVER MCDONALD'S
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Nov 4, 2023 17:02
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Taear posted:Not "deserves" but "this is a good life to want to live" I don't think that we're supposed to imagine that in all of time and space a McDonalds in the 1980s is in any respect ideal, or even objectively "good", but it meets all of those criteria. It's mundanity is what she needs in her life. There are an infinite number of lives that would be satisfying to her, but the one she chose happened to be familiar to the audience as well so the show could communicate a lot about her on a basic emotional level without having to spell it all out. She still has magic powers and her tempad. She's not facing the existential horror of being trapped in a service job. She's just comfortably experiencing that life because it has everything she lacked.
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Nov 4, 2023 17:04
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Taear posted:Why would she know that though? Why wouldn’t she? She has her memories and knows without a time loom the branches are gonna die, she’s seen it. My only problem is that if it’s a moral stand she folds immediately, but maybe a more generous read could be that this is her bar moment where she also realizes she’s full of poo poo and would rather have her life back than keep her principled stand.
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Nov 4, 2023 17:28
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Shoulda used Office Space
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Nov 4, 2023 17:29
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roffles posted:Why wouldn’t she? She has her memories and knows without a time loom the branches are gonna die, she’s seen it. My only problem is that if it’s a moral stand she folds immediately, but maybe a more generous read could be that this is her bar moment where she also realizes she’s full of poo poo and would rather have her life back than keep her principled stand.
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Nov 4, 2023 17:33
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Eiba posted:It's the life she wants to live and I think it follows based on her past experiences. She doesn't want power or luxury or even self-actualization. She's not looking for a perfectly just society, or to use her powers to make things better. She just wants to be doing the same thing every day, making small connections, without any sort of responsibility. I guess I can't imagine a godly alien who hasn't got huge experience of 1980s america just deciding "okay this is fine" and staying there She's got all the choice and freedom in the entire universe. roffles posted:Why wouldn’t she? She has her memories and knows without a time loom the branches are gonna die, she’s seen it. My only problem is that if it’s a moral stand she folds immediately, but maybe a more generous read could be that this is her bar moment where she also realizes she’s full of poo poo and would rather have her life back than keep her principled stand. Because of my main issue with the show from the spoilers above - we've not really been told what the Loom does. Or I guess DID? Like if it's specifically made for only the sacred timeline why does it keep the rest of the universe together? Did it do that before we had a sacred timeline? If it did, why is it now too small? Did the TVA exist before that too (probably if it is a predestination paradox) Maybe all this will be answered next week but I don't think Sylvie would know it. Maybe OB would, that'd be it
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Nov 4, 2023 17:33
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Eiba posted:Did we see that the branches would die without the loom? I though they were just going to destroy the TVA. Why would a stable Loom be necessary for branches to exist? Isn't the point of the TVA to erase branches? What's the point of destroying something that will erase itself anyway? I thought the techno-babble was that since the Loom existed, but then blew up, the "time radiation" released is what causes the spagettification. If there never had been a Loom, maybe the background "time radiation" would be fine, but poo poo is what it is now.
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Nov 4, 2023 17:38
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Honestly, this show is mostly coasting on vibes instead of any kind of hard logic I'm totally fine with that, to be clear
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Nov 4, 2023 17:39
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Takes No Damage posted:Still a little confused / annoyed at Sylvie's motivations. All the other characters have been telling her for 1.5 seasons that she can't destroy the TVA because if she does all the threads of reality will unravel. She says she doesn't care about that and just wants to go live her life on her time branch................ that would be unraveled without the TVA. And now that the loom exploded and destroyed the TVA she was all Surprised Pikachu Face when her timeline started to unravel The fascists that have been trying to murder her after killing her entire timeline and who she's sworn to destroy tell her again and again that if she destroys the TVA, all of reality will be destroyed? The surprise would be if she believed them. (She very clearly thinks Loki only believes because he wants the TVA for other reasons, not because it's true.) Taear posted:No? Why not go to Asgard? It's the 80s, it's still there Sylvie's Asgard got pruned. Plus she doesn't want to be a deity, she wants her life to be like McDonald's food: mundane, unexciting, somewhat artificial, and the same every day.
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Nov 4, 2023 17:44
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I like how Renslayer and Miss Minutes have completely disappeared from the plot, and no one cares or mentions them at all. I hope they're never mentioned again, and the finale is just all the cool characters working together to save the universe.
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Nov 4, 2023 17:47
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SimonChris posted:I like how Renslayer and Miss Minutes have completely disappeared from the plot, and no one cares or mentions them at all. I hope they're never mentioned again, and the finale is just all the cool characters working together to save the universe. They've ignored the millions if not billions who also work there. You had Loki smash into a taxi in the first ep, then do a drive by over the two layered city to show how complex and busy it is. Then they keep to the same 4-5 rooms and 4-5 characters for the rest of the series.
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Nov 4, 2023 18:01
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CubanMissile posted:Is Werewolf by Night In Color worth watching or does it kill the atmosphere of the original? I watched it under the assumption it was made for the kind of person that categorically refuses to watch black and white movies / TV shows. It was fine. Watch it if your expectations are low anyway and you don't really care. Otherwise skip it and watch the original again
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Nov 4, 2023 18:03
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Takes No Damage posted:Still a little confused / annoyed at Sylvie's motivations. All the other characters have been telling her for 1.5 seasons that she can't destroy the TVA because if she does all the threads of reality will unravel. She says she doesn't care about that and just wants to go live her life on her time branch SimonChris posted:I like how Renslayer and Miss Minutes have completely disappeared from the plot, and no one cares or mentions them at all. I hope they're never mentioned again, and the finale is just all the cool characters working together to save the universe.
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Nov 4, 2023 18:08
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Rappaport posted:I thought the techno-babble was that since the Loom existed, but then blew up, the "time radiation" released is what causes the spagettification. If there never had been a Loom, maybe the background "time radiation" would be fine, but poo poo is what it is now. Yeah. And gently caress me for starting or contributing to a political derail, but the show does seem to explore such themes. The tva could have never been, and we'd just have vanilla time/reality. But since it does we have to deal with that. Say you feel as Sylvie does (towards the TVA) about global industrialized society. Full of injustice and exploitation, insatiable greed and consumption that destroys our only world and our future. But it's here, and if you just destroy it (were such a thing possible), you also lose out on crucial material conditions and people will die (clean running water, amazing medical advancements, ample food, relatively peaceful freedom). Not applied equitably by any means, the first world with its global industry being our sacred timeline. Even if its wrong and doomed in its own right, how can you convince people to give it up? Even if it's not explored further, the idea of what you would do with actual power to change things is engaging. Would you let self interest guide your actions? Work from individual human empathy or cold robotic algorithms to determine the greater good? Is it enough to "clear the board", or do you have a responsibility to use that power to build something better?
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Nov 4, 2023 18:14
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Sylvie is a case of nature vs nurture. She never got the chance to be a trickster god. Would Loki be Loki if he wasn't raised by Odin and proclaimed the god of mischief? Sylvie has lived her entire life as a fugitive and has only learned about who she is by seeing other variants from afar. She is a Loki variant in that she is the child of the king of the frost giants, but she's had none of the experiences that define being a Loki. With how weird time works in this show we have no idea how much perceived time she has spent on the run. It's definitely been decades, probably centuries, possibly milennia. I can definitely see her seeking out the lowest stakes most mundane existence after that much compounded trauma. Her powers, her identity as a Loki variant, and her importance to the timeline are the reason her life has been absolute hell for so long. No wonder she wants to leave it all behind.
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Nov 4, 2023 18:15
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