What Happened In 1549 France? Why Was Mobius There?

WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for Loki  episode 1, “Glorious Purpose.”

Loki episode 1 saw Mobius M. Mobius travel to Aix-en-Provence, France, in 1549 – but why was he there? The first episode of Loki was essentially setup, establishing the show’s core concept. Shortly after the episode opens, the variant of Loki created as a result of the Avengers’ time travel in Avengers: Endgame is arrested by the Time Variance Authority, an organization dedicated to protecting what they call the “Sacred Timeline.” Rather than execute him, they offer him a chance to redeem himself after Mobius intervenes on his behalf.

Apparently, another variant of Loki has figured out how to travel in time, and they’re enjoying wreaking havoc. They’ve attacked at least six groups of TVA field agents, called “Minutemen,” slaughtering them and stealing their reset charges. One of those attacks takes place in Aix-En-Provence in 1549, and that’s the one Mobius M. Mobius – clearly a high-ranking operative in the TVA – is called in to look over. But why was the TVA in 1549 in the first place, and why didn’t the Minutemen realize they could be going up against a dangerous Loki variant?

The Minutemen were sent to Aix-En-Provence when they detected a routine nexus event – a moment that creates a branch in the timeline, potentially creating a Multiverse. According to Miss Minutes’ lecture in the Loki premiere, a nexus event can be spectacular or mundane, caused by something as significant as an individual triggering an uprising or as apparently irrelevant as someone being late for work. Because this was described as a “routine” event, it was presumably one of the latter. In fact, it may have been as simple as the time-traveling Loki variant giving a child some anachronistic bubble gum.

If nexus events can be created so easily, it stands to reason there are a lot of them, and countless teams of Minutemen are always out in the field. It would be very easy for this malicious variant of Loki to travel through the timeline, planting anachronistic items as bait for their traps, then killing the Minutemen before they can defend themselves. It’s important to note Mobius M. Mobius suspected they might not even know about all the teams who’ve been neutralized by this rogue trickster god – perhaps indicating even routine nexus missions can go wrong, with agents lost when the reset charges go off and destroy the branch. This Loki variant could be using stolen reset charges to erase evidence of their activities in some timelines.

But how is this Loki traveling through time? The most likely solution lies in a TV show production logline for Loki that leaked in August 2019 that said “the trickster uses the power of the Tesseract to travel throughout human history and change historical events.” The Tesseract contains the Space Stone, which has traditionally been shown opening wormholes through space. According to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, however, space and time are closely bound together. If the Tesseract can create portals through space, it stands to reason it can manipulate time as well. That would allow the Loki variant to travel through time without using TVA technology, making it harder for them to track, and it would explain why Marvel Studios has promoted Loki by reminding viewers of the Tesseract’s powers as well as the God of Mischief’s character and history.

Loki releases new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+.