00:00 So I want to start with this. Years ago in the Avengers, Tony Stark told Loki,
00:05 "There's no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top."
00:10 Well, he has a throne now, but in your mind, is he on top?
00:14 Eric, can I just say no one, no one else has mentioned that or pulled that quote.
00:22 That's a deep cut and I just need to pay my respects out aloud.
00:28 Wow. Yes, he does say that. And it's really going back to something that he learns across
00:34 both seasons of this series, which is, he's always defined himself by that iconic line,
00:41 "I am Loki of Asgard and I am burdened with glorious purpose." And the lesson, this variant,
00:48 the guy who picked up the Tesseract in Avengers Endgame because Hulk took the stairs or Tony had
00:54 a cardiac arrest, is ripped out of time and reality and processed by the TVA. And through
01:00 his experiences with Mobius and with Sylvie and his relationships with them, he's given a second
01:06 chance because he's shown that his idea of a glorious purpose is fraudulent and meaningless,
01:12 that he was destined to lose to make others look good. There was no glory in it ever.
01:18 And the whole of these 12 episodes are actually about rethinking and redefining
01:23 that sense of purpose. Most purpose is more burden than glory.
01:28 And I haven't said this yet, but you just really made me think of it.
01:31 We talked a lot about this absolutely great poem or a series of poems by T.S. Eliot called
01:39 The Four Quartets, an absolutely extraordinary piece of writing. And the poem is about time
01:45 and grief and the past and making peace with the past so you can move forward
01:52 through the present and into the future. And there's a line in it which actually goes like this.
01:57 And what you thought you came for is only a shell, a husk of meaning from which the purpose breaks
02:06 only when it is fulfilled, if at all. Either you had no purpose or the purpose is beyond
02:14 the end you figured and is altered in fulfillment. And your point is like, is he on?
02:22 Is it the throne he always wanted? And is he on top? I think it's that he didn't realize,
02:28 he would never have known that the purpose he thought he had was going to come in a different
02:34 shape at a different time and from a different lens. And so I think it's a kind of surprise to him
02:42 that that is where he's supposed to be.
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