Loki season 2 ending: is he trapped on the throne forever?

Loki season 2 ended with Loki finally taking his throne as a capital G God of Stories. In that bittersweet ending, he sits alone at the heart of a loom he has spun himself, in the middle of a time tree. My read when the season wrapped was that Loki will return to the MCU and that he is destined to be rescued, but not right away. I also think we should admit that the main narrative arc of his life is over.

The Disney+ series starring Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson closed its second season (2023) with an image that echoes the Tesseract at the heart of a Yggdrasil tree in the Tønsberg church from the first Captain America film. Loki has come full circle on the glorious purpose he talked about in the 2012 Avengers film and in episode one of the series. He has essentially become an Infinity Stone himself. That might be the Space Stone of the Tesseract, or the Time Stone, given the green color tones of his new role as lord of time. So is he stuck there forever? Does reality in the MCU always need someone in that chair? Or are looms and trees temporary stopgaps until the multiverse takes another shape? The show's producers offered some interesting clarification about how we're meant to see the finale.

Loki's final words to Sylvie and Mobius echo his plea to Odin in Thor

Loki's last words to Sylvie and Mobius are: "I know what I want. I know what kind of God I need to be. For you. For all of us." That's meant as a callback to what Loki shouted at Odin in the first Thor film in 2011, when he said he could have done it for him, for all of them.

Justin Benson, one of the show's directors, told Deadline that his fellow director Aaron Moorhead asked Tom Hiddleston to prepare by watching all of his scenes as Loki since that 2011 Thor movie. You can see it in Hiddleston's performance throughout the episode. In my view, the line was spoken to Odin as much as to Sylvie and Mobius. It was a prayer to his Allfather to give him the strength to step up to god status and bear the burden the way Odin had to bear one.

Loki season 2 never let him leave his Asgardian roots

Looking back across the series, Loki never truly left his Asgardian roots. Episode one showed him getting emotional on seeing the deaths of Frigga and Odin, knowing he'd never get the chance to prove to them what he was capable of. Season 1 episode 4 reunited him with Lady Sif. Season 2 episode 3 put him in front of the Norse mythological figures of Odin and Thor in Balder the Brave, with a character telling Loki that nobody would ever write stories about him.

Even the song Loki sang in the Asgardian language in season 1 episode 3 has lyrics about walking over glaciers to the apple orchard. That's close to what he does on his long walk in the finale. He crosses what looks like a glacier and creates what is essentially an apple tree, one that bears the fruit of endless opportunity for the multiverse. It lets the multiverse be itself as it was at its most chaotic, treating those incursions as fruit.

Eric Martin says Loki got his throne when it was the last thing he wanted

Odin always chastised Loki for only ever wanting the throne. In the finale, Loki gets his throne, but not the fancy one Odin sits on in Asgard. It's a more elemental throne. Head writer Eric Martin told Deadline, "the idea was always Loki would finally get his throne when it was the last thing he wanted." Martin added that, like Atlas, Loki is burdened with this purpose, and his purpose is holding all of time together. He has replaced the loom and become so powerful that he alone can hold time together.

Martin echoed the idea to Esquire, describing the big idea as taking Loki from a lowercase G god to a capital G God and powering him up to the point where he gets his throne, even though it's no longer a throne he wants. It's a duty he's doing so everyone can have their lives, giving up what he wants most so everyone else can have free will. Martin said the team wanted to power up both his abilities and his wisdom and knowledge.

Esquire asked whether we're meant to understand that Loki is suffering. Martin's answer was "I'd leave that up to interpretation," adding that the final image is meant to be ambiguous and that people can make up their own minds.

What the Atlas comparison says about Loki's burden

If you look into mythology, Atlas is an interesting figure to set beside Loki. Atlas was a Titan in Greek mythology, a Titan and not a god, who was condemned to hold up the heavens for eternity after the Titans lost their war against the Olympians. That kind of fate recurs with Titans. Prometheus stole fire from the gods and was chained to a rock and tortured for all eternity. It's a torture position. Atlas also turns up in the exploits of Hercules, and I mean the Greek mythological Hercules, not the one in the MCU.

By referencing Atlas, the writers point to a figure who isn't necessarily a god but someone who shoulders a tortuous burden. He is condemned, but it's also a point of pride.

Tom Hiddleston wouldn't rule out a Loki return

So does this mean we'll never see Loki again? Tom Hiddleston told ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis on the Phase Zero podcast that he wouldn't rule out a return. He explained that at least twice in his life he has said goodbye, writing to Kevin Feige, Louis D'Esposito and Victoria Alonso to thank them for what he called the role of a lifetime. He said they wrote back telling him to come and see them any time and that he's always part of the family, and that tears were shared. His conclusion: "I think I'd be unwise at this point to be conclusive about any of it."

Is Loki in hell? The case for a rescue

From his throne, Loki can hear everything that happens in the multiverse. As Mobius's words about letting time pass echo through the vines, we get the sense he's at peace. But like Atlas, he also looks like he's in pain shouldering the burden on behalf of his friends. One way to read his current status is that he is in hell. That recalls what he said when he woke up in the Void in the season 1 episode 4 post credits scene, asking if this was Hel, with one L, the Norse mythological afterlife. Loki has always expected to die and wake up in some kind of mythological torment.

For those of us who have fallen in love with the character, it's worth remembering this is the Loki who left the sacred timeline straight after 2012's Avengers, where he killed scores of people and wanted to kill and subjugate even more. He's a redemptive figure, but he is a sinner. And if you look at a character trapped in hell, the classic Greek mythological story beat is Orpheus and Eurydice, where Orpheus went down to the underworld to rescue his love.

So I think Loki is destined to be rescued, but not right away. I think it would be too great a punishment for Marvel fans to suggest that every MCU title going forward exists in a reality held up, like Atlas, by Tom Hiddleston as a weeping figure in a tree, waiting for us to whisper meaningful phrases. Yes, it's a fitting symbolic end for Loki. But it would be a more climactic, full circle journey for Thor, the other Avengers and Loki's friends from the series to rescue the God of Mischief they once fought, the guy the Avengers beat up and arrested in the Battle of New York.

Why defeating Kang was the key to freeing Loki in my Secret Wars theory

Again, not right away, because Loki maintains his Yggdrasil time tree as the only alternative to a cruel loom overseen by a Kang variant. As the Multiverse Saga stood then, the true stakes of defeating the Kang Dynasty, or any multiversal villain who could take its place, were that it's the only way to lift the burden on Loki. As long as the Kangs exist, Loki will never leave his post.

My theory was that through the events of the Fantastic Four film and the Avengers films planned at the time, the Marvel heroes would not only have to defeat the Kang Dynasty, they'd have to find a way to build another infrastructure for multiversal timeline management. Perhaps infinite trees and a true orchard that check and balance each other organically with minimal upkeep, maintained by a council of Reeds or by the TVA.

Loki as a mentor, and why everyone should fight for him in Secret Wars

Loki deserves a round of applause. He has been the most interesting thing, and maybe to some the only interesting thing, to come out of this era of Marvel. Debatably, he has been single-handedly carrying everyone's interest in the franchise. If he could ever leave his post, I think his role going forward should be as a mentor, a guide, or an archetypal scapegoat, the way Christ is a religious figure who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Elsewhere I've speculated that the battle lines of Secret Wars will come down to multiverse versus no multiverse, chaos versus far too much order. That means some Marvel figures will fight on team Loki, and I hope that includes the ones who fought against him in the Battle of New York: Thor, Hulk, Tony, Steve, Natasha, Clint, Fury and Coulson. Imagine Coulson telling god Loki that he found conviction. Imagine Thor leading a charge like Aragorn in The Return of the King. The MCU needs to reunite these two brothers so the sun shines on them once again.

In the way everyone fought for Coulson in the 2012 Avengers, I think everyone should fight for Loki in Secret Wars. Let the Avengers assemble, win the multiversal war, let the multiverse thrive on its own without needing an Atlas, and save their God.