LOKI: Is Free Will Real, Or Part of the TVA's Plan? | Matrix Connections Revealed, Marvel Philosophy

the first and most oppressive lie ever uttered was the song of freedom welcome to screen crush i'm ryan airy loki is exploring the concept of free will is it real or an illusion this debate between free will and determinism has been going on for centuries and now it continues on in the marvel cinematic universe why'd you catch that because it was gonna fall but it didn't fall you caught it the fact that you prevented from happening doesn't change the fact that it was going to happen simply stated determinism means that everything we do is a result of a predetermined outcome in other words our history has already been written according to the tva free will plays a tiny role in the predetermined sacred timeline and there can't be any deviation from the grand plan of the timekeepers but variants like loki prove that there are aberrations in this plan and the so-called sacred timeline isn't exactly set in stone after all the future is not set there is no fate but what we make for ourselves so far the mcu's disney plus shows have been dealing with pretty complex themes one division explored trauma depression and grief falcon and the winter soldier dove deep into racial and socio-political topics and loki continues this trend by raising philosophical questions about free will you've always lived within your set path i live within whatever path i choose question are we truly free is embedded in our dna whatever the answer is defines who we are do we have agency in our actions are any of our choices really our own are we in control of our fate or is it all part of some predetermined chain of events i have no choice everything is preordained is free will just an illusion that we create with our limited perception and don't worry about the days or are our actions simply dictated by cause and effect stimulus and response we just still have broken it if i hadn't said anything and if so aren't our choices meaningless in the grand scale of a pre-ordained destiny oh this is absurd this is the exact existential crisis that loki is dealing with the tva are preaching that there is only one timeline created by the time keepers to save reality from chaos this sacred timeline has no wiggle room events will play out as they were intended to causality action reaction everything begins with choice no wrong choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without it's all part of a grand plan of the time keepers now if this is true all the events we have seen in the mcu so far are part of this pre-ordained timeline even the avengers going back in time to collect the infinity stones it was all supposed to happen as ravana wren slayer explained what they did was supposed to happen you escaping was not the tva are there to enforce the sacred timeline make sure that there are no deviations so case closed right there's no free will so everything is written past present future there's no such thing as free will well i mean you know it's an oversimplification well it's not that simple the very existence of variants such as loki proves otherwise variants can escape their predetermined fate they are the remainder in the matrix free from the time keeper's control but this is a terrible violation against the sacred timeline according to the time keepers variants are cosmic mistakes that create nexus events that might lead to another multiversal war all of this means that the timekeepers don't allow free will meaning that this show doesn't just address free will versus determinism it's actually the main conflict of the story so in loki's case he's a time criminal because he picked up the tesseract he wasn't supposed to do that he was meant to be taken back to asgard jail accidentally kill his mom replace odin ragnarok windpipe crush and devril but this loki didn't follow along that particular yellow brick road he picked up the tesseract and escaped determinism he used his free will he branched off isn't that proof that free will is possible in the mcu you and i here at the tva we're the only ones who are actually free so in a way you can look at the sacred timeline as the matrix the tva are the agents the time keepers are the machines all the humans stuck in their predetermined paths are like the humans that are imprisoned inside the simulation so i guess that means that loki is neo he's the one oh what the irony here is that loki as always is a contradiction of himself in the first episode he spoke about the fact that freedom is a lie for nearly every living thing choice breathes shame and uncertainty and regret as a fork in every road yet the wrong path always taken so loki is talking about predetermination here free will is an illusion created by people who simply can't understand the fundamental laws of the universe and those laws are determinism this ties into what loki said back in 2012's avengers the bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power for identity preaching that it would be simpler for humans to just let him rule over them it's all ironic now because he was able to escape his fate and service proof that free will exists the real question is what will loki do with his ability to choose will he change or remain the same old loki see variants are free from determinism as soon as they straight off the timekeeper's path they'd make their own fates like merida if you had the chance to change your feet would you loki can do whatever he wants his future is in the air and even the timekeepers don't know where his path will lead he is an anomaly or i guess the tva would call him by another name a cosmic mistake first that's a terrible thing to say to anyone second let's talk about the moment that loki committed his terrible crime in his defense loki blamed the avengers for messing up the timeline you see i only came into possession of the tesseract because they traveled through time which is sort of true but ravana rinslayer's rebuttal is that the avengers were supposed to do all of that so it was fine again determinism so what was supposed to happen here because once you really think about it if loki didn't use the tesseract then things would have played out very differently in endgame the only reason why steve rogers and tony stark had to travel back to the 1970s was to steal the space stone so if loki doesn't escape with a stone the time heist in 2012 would have been successful were the avengers meant to retrieve the space stone from 2012 or were they always meant to go back to the 70s no matter what if it's the latter then loki isn't actually guilty of any timeline crime yeah wow not to mention that the trip back to the 70s helped steve decide that he wanted to be with peggy so does this mean that he wasn't supposed to stay behind in the 40s if so then maybe this really is peggy carter getting arrested in the background of episode 1. all of this means that events aren't really set in stone and the time keepers constantly adjust to these changes based on what they decide should happen and then there's lady loki she was able to create many nexus events kill multiple men and men steal reset charges and most importantly escape the timekeeper's control while most of these things are terrible crimes randy is once again proof that free will is possible she chose to do all of these things and choice is the name of the game here why mr anderson why why do you persist because i choose to this is why lady loki is so powerful and why she's such a threat to the timekeepers she's their worst nightmare a variant who not only exists outside of her path but also someone who has the agency to fight back and so maybe determinism isn't as unconditional as the tva makes it out to be i am on the verge of acquiring everything i am owed and when i do it'll be because i did it not because it was supposed to happen but maybe miss minutes secretly has the answer think about this miss minutes is programmed a certain way the same way people are hardwired to like food and betty white but within our programming we choose how to respond to our individual environments just like miss minutes can choose how to respond to loki's questions can you hear me are you recording or are you alive uh sort of both and so the so-called sacred timeline isn't so sacred after all i mean who gave the timekeepers their power and authority to decide what's supposed to happen because look i'm not buying the tva propaganda no matter how cute miss minute's voice is and come to think of it the tva sort of feels like a bunch of religious zealots especially when they talk about the sacred timeline and the timekeepers i mean just listen to mobius and how he describes his faith in the time keepers no more nexus events just order and we meet in peace at the end of time that sure sounds like brainwashing to me this is another case of a free-will debate propaganda manipulation and programming are all associated with a form of control over human perceptions for example if the time keepers drilled it into the heads of the tva that they must protect the sacred timeline at all costs this results in variants being considered criminals cosmic mistakes that must be erased doubt will plunge this country back into chaos and i will not let that happen one of the first goals of a totalitarian state is to dehumanize the other to make their own population feel like they're superior to their enemies and that they must rely on their leaders to protect them from outsiders at all costs though maybe mobius doesn't truly believe in all this propaganda his dream to one day write a jet ski sounds like a longing to break free of the tva's strict rules i think a tva agent showing up on a jet ski on the sacred timeline that would create a branch for sure not be fun though yeah it'd be really fun and you can say the same thing about the head of the tva ravana renslayer the fact that she collects trophies from different points in time says a lot about the nature of the time-variance authority freedom is embedded within any human being no matter what three space lizards say the price of freedom is high and it's a price i'm willing to pay determinism might be the cosmic law but people will always try to break free this might be the reason why the time keepers are so worried about variants maybe the whole multiversal war is all propaganda and the space lizards are simply terrified they will lose their power if people realize that they can veer off their paths without consequences what happens happened which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world it's not an excuse to do nothing after these two episodes of loki the debate of free will versus determinism seems to be the driving point of the show the next four episodes are likely to make things more complicated but so far it seems like free will will prevail in the end anyways that's our take on the main theme of loki do you think free will is possible in the mcu or is everything pre-ordained let me know in the comments below or at me on twitter and if it's your first time here please subscribe for screen crush i'm ryan airy [Music] you

Channel: ScreenCrush

Views: 89,554

Keywords: loki, loki explained, loki video essay, loki free will, loki easter eggs, marvel, mcu, marvel cineamtic univrse, loki villain, loki infinity stones

Id: e-542OBQOeo

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 21 2021