Fairly actually flipping the temporal loom on its head, Loki restructures the ‘branches’ right into a multiversal tree. These up on their Norse mythology evening learn about Yggdrasil, which is a sacred tree on the centre of Norse cosmology that brings collectively the 9 Realms. Contemplating Loki’s tree unites the multiverse, there’s some poetic imagery right here. This newest addition from Norse mythology comes after Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok lined the occasions of the titular Ragnarok and noticed the destruction of Asgard.
Eagle-eyed viewers on Twitter/X have famous that Yggdrasil was first teased (chronologically) in Captain America: The First Avenger, with Hugo Weaving’s Crimson Cranium looking for out the Tesseract from behind a mural of the mythological tree in 1942. Additionally in 2011, Thor mentions the World Tree, with Chris Hensworth’s God of Thunder telling Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) how the Life Tree holds collectively the cosmos. Again then, Thor defined, “Your world is among the 9 Realms of the cosmos, linked to one another by the branches of Yggdrasil, the World’s Tree.” This has been considerably rewritten, with Yggdrasil representing the very multiverse.
Thor: The Darkish World claimed that the 9 Realms have been stacked on high of one another, with Yggdrasil holding every as a special department. Now, Yggdrasil has been reimagined as a tree on the centre of the universe as a substitute of being an idea particular to ‘our’ Earth-616 actuality. The branches symbolize completely different realities like Physician Unusual within the Multiverse of Insanity’ Earth-838. With out going too far into spoiler territory, this might have main ramifications for the likes of Deadpool 3 and Avengers: Secret Wars.
Very like references to ouroboros (a unending snake consuming its personal tail), all of it loops again to the payoff of Loki changing into the God of Tales within the season two finale. The MCU couldn’t have predicted that the franchise would broaden prefer it has, which means it was unlikely a Loki standalone collection was deliberate again in 2011. Nonetheless, it may very well be that a few of these beats regarding Norse mythology and the arcs of the Thor characters have been being sketched out this early on.
Over on Reddit, u/KevinAnniPadda identified that Loki’s modus operandi was to get the Tesseract for Thanos, later utilizing it because the House Stone to open a portal to Earth and lead the Chitauri within the Battle of New York. Because the Norsemen had hidden the Tesseract behind a mural to Yggdrasil earlier than the occasions of World Warfare II, there’s a continued sense of irony – particularly as Loki stealing the Tesseract in the course of the Time Heist is what introduced him to the TVA within the first place.