Loki Shows The Ancient One Was Wrong In Avengers: Endgame

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Loki episode 6.

By introducing the Kang and the TVA, Loki revealed that the Ancient One was wrong about fundamentals that she provided in Avengers: Endgame. While Loki has worked to set up the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe through Phase 4 and beyond, it has also tidied up details from the MCU’s history. One lesser expected revelation was that the Ancient One could be fundamentally wrong about how the universe worked.

The Ancient One was introduced as the custodian of the Time Stone, and then killed off in Doctor Strange. In Avengers: Endgame, through the magic of time travel, Bruce Banner is able to discuss their plan to stop Thanos with her and she, in turn, makes him aware of the dangers of their plan. Loki took the MCU’s explanation of time travel to a whole new level as it explored the TVA and the creation of nexus events, and demonstrated that some people know more about timelines than the Ancient One.

The Ancient One explained that she cannot allow Banner to take the Time Stone from her timeline because the infinity stones control the flow of time. She continues, saying that removing a single stone from her timeline might save Banner’s, but it would cause her timeline to branch, and says: “without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness, our world will be overrun. Millions will suffer.” Loki demonstrates this to be incorrect, as in reality when a timeline branches the TVA arrives and quickly resets that branch of the timeline and it promptly ceases to exist.

While it could be argued that the Ancient One could be referring to Alioth, the living tempest at the end of time, when she mentions “the forces of darkness,” Loki suggests that she is also wrong about the function of the Infinity Stones. She says that they “create what you experience as the flow of time.” She might have come to this conclusion because when looking forward in time as far as she is able to (her death, prior to the events of Avengers: Infinity War,) she can see that if one were removed then time would stop for that reality.

However, this is not because the Infinity Stones create the flow of time, but because they are necessary for Kang’s Sacred Timeline to come to fruition. Any event that removed (and did not return) an Infinity Stone from the timeline would prevent Thanos from being able to use them in the snap and would stop Iron Man from being able to bring everybody back. Mobius (Owen Wilson) confirms in the first episode of Loki that this was part of the intended Sacred Timeline, and therefore the removal of the stones would cause the TVA to reset the timeline. It is entirely possible that outside of Kang’s plan the stones are really just powerful items and not actually necessary to the Universe’s functioning, which is why the TVA have so many that they can use them as paperweights.

About The Author

Faefyx Collington
(497 Articles Published)

Faefyx Collington (They/Them) is a senior features writer for Screen Rant. They’re a British writer of both fiction and non-fiction, focussing on science fiction, fantasy, and mystery for the former and on culture, gender, and current affairs for the latter.
Never content to settle to one thing, Faefyx is also a co-host and producer of the podcast and video series “Unramblings,” and can occasionally be found making music around the internet as well.
Having acquired degrees on both sides of the Atlantic, Fyx has settled (for the moment) in the southern United States where they live with their spouse and an entirely appropriate number of cats.

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