How Loki’s Robot Comment Acknowledges His Tragic Origin Story

Warning: SPOILERS for Loki episode 1.

Loki‘s comment about potentially not knowing if he was a robot highlights his tragic origin story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The opening act of Loki episode 1 focused on what happened to him after he disappeared with the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame. Rather than end up on the other side of the galaxy, Loki wound up in Mongolia, where he was promptly apprehended by the Time Variance Authority and taken to their secret headquarters.

Amidst the bureaucratic process following an arrest is what the TVA does to the variants it takes in. Living things like Loki are processed and quickly put on trial, but if they go against anything along the way, they are pruned and reset. It’s what almost happened to Loki, if Mobius hadn’t caught up with him and saved his life. However, before that scene, there was one moment when Loki was questioned about being a robot. He was shocked that someone would ask him if he was or wasn’t, at least “to his knowledge,” because not knowing if you have a soul seemed ludicrous to him. But then he actually questioned it.

For a brief moment, Loki had an existential crisis and wondered if he really was a robot. He said, “What if I was a robot and I didn’t know it?” It’s a minor aspect of the entire sequence that’s played mostly for laughs, but it carries a deeper meaning – whether it was intentional or not. Loki is known as Laufeyson because he’s the son of the Frost Giant Laufey, not Odin, the king of Asgard. Throughout his life, he felt Odin favored Thor, but he didn’t know why. It wasn’t until the events of 2011’s Thor that Loki finally discovered his true heritage, that he is a Frost Giant. It’s possible that before he went through the machine, Loki questioned if there was still something he didn’t know about his past.

It’s worth remembering that this Loki still may be recovering from the news that he’s a Frost Giant, because for him, the events of Thor could’ve only happened a year or so before. It’s still fresh, and he’s still figuring where he falls in the grand scheme of things. When Loki finally moved through the machine, he did so with hesitation because he truly wasn’t sure about his existence. If Odin kept it a secret that he wasn’t Asgardian for years, what else could Odin have omitted?

Loki may be aware of everything that happened between the Battle of New York and his death in Avengers: Infinity War, but he never experienced all of that himself – and he never atoned for his actions by fighting alongside Thor against Hela. Just him briefly questioning whether or not he’s a robot is proof enough that this Loki still has a ways to go, because his core identity is still a mystery to him.

Loki releases new episodes on Wednesdays on Disney+.

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Mansoor Mithaiwala
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Mansoor Mithaiwala is Screen Rant’s TV Lead Editor. He originally joined the site as a freelance writer on the Lists team before moving over to News and Features, eventually becoming an editor in 2018. Over time he’s done quite a few different things, including helping launch gaming on the site, often handling news, features, and guides simultaneously. Now he sticks primarily to movies and TV, and spends way too much time looking at analytics. It sure seems like he’s put his Political Science degree to good use, huh?

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