You missed Loki’s point if you think Sylvie is to blame for Kang

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Marvels Phase 5 kicks off next month with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which means Kang the Conqueror is about to make his big MCU debut. While many fans are already rooting for this next big franchise villain, some are scared of the damage he’ll do while he’s here. With speculation that the third Ant-Mans movie will culminate in the death of Scott Lang himself at the hands of Kang, many fans online are already set to run out of blood if it ends up coming to fruition. But it’s not Kang they’re about to pursue, it’s Sylvie, from the Loki series.

Why is a character who hasn’t even interacted with Ant-Man and is unlikely to appear in Quantumania blamed for his potential death? The short answer: misogyny and lack of understanding or concern for fascism.

The longest answer dates back to the first season finale of Loki, when Loki and Sylvie traveled out of time and space to find the One Who Remains, a variant of Kang who named himself a master of time and created the sacred timeline. In order to maintain said singular timeline and prevent others from deriving and potentially merging from it leading to (another) multiversal, Warhe created the Time Variance Authority (TVA). This time-traveling institution captures variant beings whose actions (unknowingly) led to the creation of a time branch and ensures that branching timelines are pruned. This unassuming word actually means that they are sent to the Void at the end of time to be consumed in their entirety by a giant cloud monster (well, until the Lokis defeat it).

(Disney)

Sylvie, being a Variant herself, wasn’t too enthusiastic about this plan. After spending her entire life on the run from the TVA after being captured by them as a child, she was finally able to fulfill her mission to assassinate the one who set up this system in the first place: The One Left Behind. In doing so, she also liberated the multiverse. But now that the Kang variants, the ones the sacred timeline was designed to keep from seeing the light of day, are coming, a new mood is building among some Marvel fans. You’ve heard of Thanos, right? Well, get ready for what’s next: The one left was right.

Fans who subscribe to this mindset believe that Sylvie was wrong to kill the One Who Remains and free the multiverse because all was peaceful before her. In other words, the billions of creatures that were regularly killed through multiversal genocide didn’t matter to them because they didn’t have to worry about its variants eventually killing those they did. they know and love. It’s a classic example of if this injustice doesn’t affect me directly, it doesn’t matter. This feeling is seen too often in the real world (obviously with much worse consequences than in a fictional film franchise, but the way people react to things in fiction can reveal underlying revelations about what they feel about them elsewhere).

Now, that doesn’t mean that Sylvie necessarily made the right decision. It was obvious that she was focused on her long-time mission and not thinking clearly when she killed the One Who Remains. She believed it would bring her catharsis, but it actually only brought emptiness. Lokis plans in the episode to take some time to think before deciding whether to kill the One Who Remains or accept his offer to take over the maintenance of the Sacred Timeline (or offer a third option that allows free will while still keeping the multiverse safe from Kang and those like him, which I believe and hope will be the eventual resolution of the multiverse saga) was probably the best path. However, Sylvie’s actions while not bringing her the closure hoped for were both understandable from the character’s perspective and justifiable when compared to the other option presented on the table.

(Disney)

Freeing the Multiverse brought with it the possibility of people dying at the hands of Kang and other gruesome beings and even the likelihood of characters we love biting it trying to stop them, but continuing the process of pruning entire timelines ensures that a ton of people will die, not being able to make decisions that deviate from a predetermined scenario or defend themselves from issues that arise (like, you know, being eaten by a giant cloud monster). It is a choice between the certainty of death for many or the possibility of life for all.

Sylvie shouldn’t be blamed for any issues that might (okay, but we only know that because it’s a fictional media franchise in the middle of a storytelling saga) arise in the MCU at the coming. Blaming her for Kang potentially killing Ant-Man or other characters is a prime example of how quickly some people blame a woman for a man’s misdeeds, or portray them as the irrational stereotype of a woman. Trading certain death for many in favor of the chance for them and so many others to live isn’t a completely far-fetched decision, even if she wasn’t thinking entirely rationally when she did it. Is it any wonder that many of these fans have no sympathy for other female characters such as Wanda Maximoff and have an unqualified view of projects like WandaVision?

So, it was clear: if Scott Lang dies in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it’s Kangs’ fault, not Sylvies’. And the fans, especially those who loved Spider-Man: No Way Home, which I’m pretty sure most of them should actually be thanking her for: if the multiverse hadn’t been free, No Way Home wouldn’t would have ever happened and we wouldn’t have been able to see Tobey, Andrew, and Tom all fight together and then kiss!

(featured image: Disney)

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