Loki: Why The Multiverse Splits Before The Villain Dies

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Loki season one.

Loki's season one finale breaks the multiverse, but why did the timeline split before He Who Remains aka Kang (Jonathan Majors) dies? One of the biggest questions looming over Loki's first season was the identity of the show's real villain and whoever was behind the Time Variance Authority. There was no shortage of theories on who it could be, and viewers gave their final guesses after catching a glimpse of the castle beyond The Void in the penultimate episode. Viewers finally learned in the finale that a version of Kang the Conqueror was Loki's secret villain, as the major comics villain made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut.

The debut of Kang came as Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) entered his secret hideout intending to take him down. He Who Remains originally proposed they could return to the Sacred Timeline before offering them control of the TVA. However, Loki and Sylvie saw the situation differently, with Sylvie determined to kill the man responsible for taking her life away from her. She ultimately proved to be successful in this scenario after tricking Loki. All of this resulted in the MCU's Sacred Timeline branching and re-creating a multiverse, but the moment that triggers the ensuing multiverse of madness might not be what some expected.

From the very beginning of Loki, the show has been clear on what causes the Sacred Timeline to branch. An unplanned decision or moment, known as a nexus event, triggered the creation of a branched timeline and made it the TVA's job to prune these timelines before they became too different. Loki's finale confirms Kang was the one setting the course of the Sacred Timeline and stopping the multiverse from existing. But, even he revealed that he only knew what happened to a point. This wasn't because Sylvie was destined to kill him, though. Kang willingly stopped planning and mentioned a threshold that was a point where he no longer knew what would happen. His death happens after this, but the timeline was branching before what is arguably the most likely moment to be a nexus event. Instead, the MCU's multiverse splits before He Who Remains' death because he allows it to.

There is also an argument that the moments leading right up to the threshold allow the timeline to split. He Who Remains was only a few seconds removed from giving his final pitch to Sylvie and Loki about their options to kill him or take over the TVA when the thunder started rumbling and the timeline began branching. It is in those few seconds, though, that Sylvie and Loki each seemed to make up their minds about what to do next. Loki decides that killing Kang is the wrong move, but Sylvie still wants to kill him. Loki previously showed how their connection could create a major nexus event, so it is just as possible that becoming enemies is a big enough moment to break the timeline in its entirety.

Now that Loki broke the Sacred Timeline, the multiverse is set up to be a problem that will impact multiple Phase 4 projects. Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness have connections to the split multiverse. With these future movies and possibly others continuing to deal with the fallout of the multiverse's state, the decisions made by Loki, Sylvie, and Kang will be felt for a long time to come.

MORE: The Loki Season 1 Finale Leaves 7 Big Questions About The Future Of The MCU

Loki will return for season 2.