Here’s How Loki Learned To Control His Time Slipping

Time slipping is one of the concepts that is new to season 2 of ‘Loki’ as it allows us to see Loki traveling through time and space to get to certain spots in either the past or the future. While we thought that he had already cured his problem with time slipping, the issue returned in episode 5 of season 2 when the radiation coming from the Temporal Loom destroyed almost everything in the TVA. But as the episode progressed, Loki learned how to control this skill. So, how did Loki learn how to control his time slipping?

Loki’s time slipping returns

Back in episode 1 of ‘Loki’ season 2, the God of Mischief encountered a serious problem when he started slipping between the past and present. He learned from Ouroboros (OB) that this problem was called Time Skipping and that the only way for him to get rid of it was for a Temporal Aura Extractor to anchor Loki over at the Temporal Loom before Loki needed to prune himself.

This worked as Loki was able to get rid of his time slipping problem. However, in episode 5, he learned that the problem returned. Back in episode 4, the radiation coming from the Temporal Loom was so great that it was about to destroy the entire TVA. But Loki was seemingly spared from it for reasons that we aren’t really sure of yet.

But Loki had a problem in relation to his time slipping as he often slipped to different timelines. In fact, he eventually learned that he was not only slipping into the past, present, and future but was also slipping into the different branches of the Sacred Timeline. This means that Loki was able to get to different places and timelines. The problem was that he couldn’t control this ability.

OB’s theory

Loki also found out that the destruction of the TVA reset the lives of his friends. Casey, Mobius, and Hunter B-15 were all returned to their own timelines under their own names before they were taken to the TVA. But it was when Loki met the OB variant named AD Doug, who worked as a sci-fi author and physicist, that he was able to learn more about his time slipping problem.

After meeting the OB variant, Loki tried to explain what was happening. The good thing was that AD Doug believed him because he was a sci-fi author and a scientist. Doug tried to tell Loki that he may be able to use his ability to time slip by returning to the point in time before the TVA was destroyed. However, Loki said that he didn’t know how to control his ability and that he didn’t think that it was possible to return to a point in time that had already been erased.

But the OB variant told Loki two important things about science fiction. The first was that science deals with the “what” and “how.” Meanwhile, the second is that fiction deals with the “why.” Loki already had the “what” and “how” covered because he already knew what time slipping was and how it worked, but the problem was that he didn’t have a “why.”

Loki tried to use his time slipping by focusing on the “why,” which he thought was his goal to save the TVA and everyone in it so that they could have a defense against the coming of the Kang variants. But while he tried to do so, it didn’t work.

AD Doug postulated once more that it might be possible that his time slipping could work and that he could return to the point in time before the TVA was destroyed by collecting all of the people who were there with him. As such, he convinced the variants of Mobius, Casey, and B-15 to go back to AD Doug’s lab.

Loki understands how time slipping works

After collecting all of his friends, Loki realized that he also needed to get Sylvie because she was also there with them before the Temporal Loom destroyed the TVA. He went back to 1980s Oklahoma and realized that Sylvie actually had her memory of Loki. This made it easier for them to talk about what happened in the TVA.

Sylvie was able to make Loki admit that he was selfish in the sense that the only reason why he wanted to save the TVA was to get his friends back. Loki admitted that he didn’t want to be lonely because this was the first time in his life that he ever had real friends. But Sylvie told Loki that he could have the freedom to find friendship again and that he should leave her alone in the life that she chose.

Loki returned to AD Doug’s lab without Sylvie. However, Sylvie had to retreat to that timeline when her timeline got destroyed by the Temporal Loom as well. But as they were trying to fix things, AD Doug’s makeshift Tempad disappeared. The timelines also started to disappear, as Loki’s friends disappeared one by one before Loki time slipped into the past.

That was when Loki realized how time slipping works. It wasn’t a question of “what,” “how,” and “why.” Instead, it was a question of “who.” Loki realized that he could use time slip by anchoring himself to a specific person that he wanted to go back to. And because of that, he was able to find a way to return to the TVA just before the Temporal Loom destroyed it.

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