Time Keepers Explained: Timeline Battle, Multiverse War & TVA

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Loki episode 1, "Glorious Purpose."

Loki episode 1 introduces the Time Keepers and their Time Variance Authority - and sets them as up as a force to be reckoned with in the MCU. Time travel is complicated, as any film or TV series that dabbles with the concept will attest. The core problem is that it's largely theoretical, and as a result precious few time travel stories actually manage to be consistent with the rules. Marvel learned that lesson with Avengers: Endgame, whose model of temporal mechanics was so confusing Endgame's writers and directors disagree about how it worked.

Loki continues to develop the MCU's model of time travel, introducing viewers to the Time Variance Authority - a group who consider it their responsibility to police the "Sacred Timeline." The Avengers may have cleared up most of the loose ends they created when they traveled back in time to collect the Infinity Stones, but one branch was left - the one in which Loki escaped with the Tesseract. The TVA has stepped forward to prune that particular branch, taking this variant of Loki to their unnamed city in order to stand trial.

But who are the TVA, and what gives them the right to decide the MCU's past, present, and future? Loki episode 1, "Glorious Purpose," provided answers to those questions, courtesy of a quick briefing from Miss Minutes. Here's everything revealed about the history of the MCU's Multiverse, the Time Keepers, and their agents the TVA.

The Multiversal War & the Time Keepers

According to Miss Minutes, the timeline is naturally chaotic. Any moment has the potential to be a so-called "Nexus Point," where a branch in the timeline is created; Miss Minutes suggests a person could create a branch by doing something as spectacular as starting an uprising, or as mundane as being late for work. Given that's the case, it's reasonable to assume there were originally untold billions of unique timelines, some only slightly different to the one we know, but others no doubt far more bizarre and surreal. Unfortunately, Miss Minutes explained the different branched timelines became aware of one another, resulting in a vast Multiversal war. "Countless unique timelines battled each other for supremacy," Miss Minutes explained. This war apparently came close to destroying all of time and space, and no doubt is the "Secret War" Easter egg teased by head writer Michael Waldron; in the comics, 2015's Secret War event saw all the Marvel timelines collide in an interdimensional conflict.

The Time Keepers "emerged," bringing peace to the Multiverse by reorganizing all of existence into a single timeline. These powerful beings are essentially the TVA's gods, considered all-knowing and all-wise, and the TVA's job is to maintain the timeline according to their will. Loki isn't exactly subtle in this analogy, given the TVA explicitly refer to the "Sacred Timeline" - i.e. the one that is in accordance with the will of their gods - and the Trickster God himself senses the power the TVA wield. The Time Keepers have no direct analogue from the comics themselves, although they're adapted from a minor concept that's appeared in a handful of issues, such as Thor #282. Viewed through a cynical lens, it's likely the MCU's Time Keepers are the beings who triumphed in the Multiversal war and were consequently able to impose their will upon all creation. They justify their dominance by insisting they are preventing another Multiversal conflict, but in reality they are simply enforcing their rule.

The Time Variance Authority Explained

The Time Variance Authority are the Time Keepers' enforcers, responsible for policing the Multiverse and ensuring new branched timelines are not created. They are essentially bureaucratic, obsessed with their own processes, continuing to enforce them without ever once stopping to question them. Arthur C. Clarke famously posited that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it's testimony to the TVA's scientific marvels that even Loki wondered whether they were using magic when he looked out at the city in which they live. That, more than anything else, indicates how advanced they really are; even someone who grew up on Asgard can't believe the evidence of his eyes.

The TVA's home appears to be outside of time in some way, but Loki episode 1 goes to great lengths to avoid naming it. This is sure to fuel speculation they're actually based in the city of Chronopolis, which - in the comics - sits outside time in a realm called Limbo and is strongly associated with the villainous Kang the Conqueror. The comic book version of Chronopolis allows access to all of time and space, with portals and doorways that can be used to travel the Multiverse - very similar in design to the doorways the TVA use. It's interesting to note some of the properties associated with Limbo in the comics have been ascribed to the Quantum Realm in the MCU, and Ant-Man & the Wasp featured a brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpse of a city in the Quantum Realm that looked just like the Chronopolis of the comics. What's more, Jonathan Majors is confirmed to play Kang in Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantamania, so this connection looks highly likely.

Wherever they may be based, though, the TVA's primary responsibility is to monitor the timeline looking for evidence new branches are being created. When a nexus is identified, they step in to arrest the culprit and use their technology to destroy the branch. There do appear to be limits to their powers; when Mobius visited France in 1549, he was told he needed to act quickly because that particular anachronistic branch was "nearing redline." It's reasonable to assume it is much easier to destroy a nascent timeline, and one that passes "redline" has become too stable to be safely destroyed in this way. Hopefully this line of dialogue serves as foreshadowing, and we get to see what happens if a timeline passes redline.

The TVA consider themselves a force for good; that's made abundantly clear in Miss Minutes' presentation, where variants are caricatured as sinister and the TVA agents are praised. But it's crucial to remember they are maintaining their precious "Sacred Timeline" in accordance with the will of three beings whose true motives are unknown. Furthermore, Miss Minutes' brief introduction to the MCU's temporal mechanics raises more questions than answers, simply because viewers know more than the TVA and Loki do; audiences know, for example, that Marvel Studios' What If..? series will reveal a number of alternate dimensions, where history played out differently, but according to the TVA those shouldn't exist. Either Miss Minutes is wrong, and the Multiverse is more complex than the TVA claim, or Loki's actions in this series will change the nature of reality itself.

Loki releases new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+.

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