While Marvel is great at leaving us with lots of questions, “will they or won’t they” isn’t generally among them. However, after this past episode of Loki, it’s something so many of us can’t stop thinking about. I mean, what did that look mean? Was he going to kiss her? Is he in love with her? And perhaps most importantly, uh, how exactly does falling in love with an alternate version of yourself work because that seems like quite the can of worms?
While they didn’t confirm whether or not Sylki (don’t know how I feel about that ship name, I’ll be honest) was going to officially “happen,” head writer Michael Waldron and director Kate Herron took to Marvel’s blog to clear a few things up on why they went this direction with them.
“We went back and forth for a little bit about, like do we really want to have this guy fall in love with another version of himself. But in a series that, to me, is ultimately about self-love, self-reflection, and forgiving yourself, it just felt right that that would be Loki’s first real love story … The look that they share, that moment, [it started as] a blossoming friendship. Then for the first time, they both feel that twinge of, ‘Oh, could this be something more? What is this I’m feeling?’”
As we all know, behind Loki’s cool and cocky exterior lies one mushy-hearted and insecure Asgardian, so finding a bit of self-love ought to do him a lot of good and makes sense for his character development. However, if Sylvie turns out to be Enchantress, there’s a possibility Loki could feel betrayed, and the slightly narcissistic god’s warm feelings could grow a bit cold. Already Herron has pointed out that while they might be the same person literally, they are drastically different in major ways. According to Herron:
“[Loki] sees things in Sylvie that he is like, ‘Oh, I’ve been there. I know what you feel.’ But she’s like, ‘Well, I don’t feel that way.’ And I think that was the kind of fun thing about it. She is him, but she’s not him. They’ve had such different life experiences. So just from an identity perspective, it was interesting to dig into that.”
Despite how things play out, there’s no denying that right now these feelings are fueling the show and might provide Loki with the passion he needs to get out of his current — and dire — situation. Later in the interview, Waldron stated “these are two beings of pure chaos that are the same person falling in love with one another. That’s a straight-up and down branch, and exactly the sort of thing that would terrify the TVA [Time Variance Authority].” And right now, they’re looking like enemy number one.
With only two episodes left, we can’t wait to see how Loki wraps up.