#Queen Sylvie

[commanderpeggymcgee]

“Some years ago, my brother was banished from Asgard and sent to Earth. And when he came back, he was…different. Changed, somehow. I thought it was weakness. I mocked him, said he’d gone soft.”

“Soft gets you killed.”

LOKI (2021 – ) 2x04 “Heart of the TVA”

[hiraeth-doux]

"What do you want from me? What is this about?"

LOKI 1x02 "The Variant"

[erenfox]

Sylvie Laufeydottir

Teresa Agnes

Luke Castellan

Vanessa Shelly

and so many more...

[percheduphere]

It troubles me when fans find Loki in his own tv series "out of character". Since the first Thor movie, Loki has shown a certain sweetness, protectiveness, and level-headedness that was overcome and eventually self-suppressed by rage and tragedy. He didn't have an environment in which he could thrive and, in Frigga's words, succeed at being who he truly is.

Loki desperately needed a support system outside his immediate family. That support system simply couldn't have been built on Asgard because of:

1. Odin's political machinations, including the intentional creation of an environment rife with sibling rivalry and blatant favoritism.

2. The racist if not xenophobic views of Asgardians.

3. The inherent masculine-dominant, warrior society culture of Asgard.

To break Loki out of his self-destructive patterns, it took the empathy of 1 brainwashed and memory-wiped TVA analyst to rightly recognize that Loki as a person has incredible potential and that he could actively do something about it. That Mobius uses this reasoning for the advantage of the TVA (then under HWR's helm) is a plot point I'll discuss later, but the fact still stands: Loki was given a second chance to be who he really is because of the choice Mobius made to intervene. Loki would have been pruned before he would have had the opportunity to meet Sylvie, B-15, Casey, and OB. This is fact.

Mobius literally drops everything--the case he's actively investigating--to intervene. The fact a minuteman immediately reports the variant of Loki he is most interested in has been taken into custody suggests that Mobius has been planning this intervention for some time.

Some fans hate Mobius for his treatment of Loki in the first episode. It is, indeed, manipulative, condescending, and to a certain extent, emotionally abusive. I'm not denying any of this, but from a narrative perspective, Mobius, to be a fully well-rounded character, necessarily must have his own flaws and personal conflicts to battle. Loki's evolution as a character, and thus his positive impact on others, would be missing an emotional beat of mutual reciprocation otherwise. That emotional beat pays off in every episode of S2, culminating in the final scene of the final episode. This is to say nothing of the likelihood that Loki would not have been receptive to any form of gentleness at that point in time to begin with.

Crucially, Mobius gets Loki to admit that his villainous persona is exactly that: an illusion constructed in a bid for control. Some viewers might interpret this scene as a shortcut for getting Loki to behave "out of character" by S1E2, but Thor 2 proves otherwise:

This scene with Thor demonstrates that Loki has a high pain tolerance and is adept at hiding pain. His need to mask his vulnerability, and how that vulnerability is intrinsically tied with the misplaced shame of who he is, resonates deeply with queer, people of color, immigrant, colonized, and adopted fans, many of whom have intersectional lived experiences (including myself). I believe it is for this reason that so many of us are desperate for blatant representation in mainstream entertainment, and to shame us for the sin of hoping is disturbing.

But I digress. Frigga, Thor, and now Mobius are among the few who can see through Loki's deception. That deception has the unfortunate effect of hurting not only innocent civillians but his loved ones and himself (closeting, internalized racism).

Once Loki is able to drop that persona through admission, however, he is able to relax and be himself in the TVA. And in being himself, Loki is consequently able to love himself, which manifests through loving Sylvie. S1 shows Loki holding her up on a romantic pedestal: he chases after her, he sings a song for her, he wants her to be okay. He loves her, yes, and though it appears she does not reciprocate (in my opinion, your mileage might vary), Sylvie does love Loki enough back to buy him a drink and counsel him about what he really wants. This scene is critical in Loki's development in the same way Mobius sheds light on his potential to be whoever he wants.

Both Mobius and Sylvie are integral for Loki to arrive at his turning point, his ultimate sacrifice. Loki loves Sylvie. He therefore chooses to not kill her. Killing her, moreover, would not solve the issue of free will. Sylvie is right in believing free will, and thus the multiverse, is right and necessary. Sylvie's moral question and Loki sparing her life, answers Mobius's belief that Loki can be whoever he wants.

On the other side of this coin, watching Mobius in the final scene, hearing Mobius whisper, "Let time pass..." answers Sylvie's question of what Loki wants, and what he want more deeply than not being alone is for his friends, most especially Mobius (whom he also loves and cares for most, to LIVE.

The series ends with only 2 characters heartbroken with the outcome of Loki's heroism, which Mobius knew existed within him from the beginning. He saw those little but important moments: Loki comforting his brother, Loki protecting Jane, Loki giving up his life to buy Thor time, and so much more, he saw and he knew Frigga's words were right.

[thetrolltolls]

my multiverse of madness

[feral-sylki]

Still thinking about the power move of showing up to the McDonalds that you first visited in full battle armour, told them you had no idea how fast food restaurants were supposed to work, politely requested they didn’t serve you rat or anything with a face. and then subsequently landed the job there. Like seriously we need to revisit Sylvie’s charm factor bc hot damn

[yappingbitch73]

୨ৎ────୨ৎ───────୨ৎ───────୨ৎ────୨ৎ

I ♡ sylvie sm it's insane she's such an angel ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

୨ৎ────୨ৎ───────୨ৎ───────୨ৎ────୨ৎ

[villainboygirl]

Loki and Sylvie are truly drama queens.

When Loki and Sylvie regained their magic power into the TVA, I was expecting some epic fight with Miss Minutes. Instead, they just confronted Brad.

What I love is that Loki and Sylvie could have easily overpowered Brad even in a physical fight, or they could have taken him from behind. But no: they had to do that ultra-disturbing scene with the dark corridor, the shadows and the agonizing silence of several seconds.

[deepinthelight]

Women of The Musketeers

[woulddieforloki]

I can't stop thinking about the person who said that from 2013 to 2017 the general consensus was that Loki had killed Odin to take the throne (which makes sense; I just wasn't in the fandom at the time) and then obviously Ragnarok took it in a different direction but like? what if it didn't? like if the rules Ragnarok established were still canon but the movie doesn't go that way, so Loki comes back from Svartalfheim with a stab wound in his gut and a fiery rage in his eye and kills Odin and then bam, Hela appears. and tbh if her first impression of him is the sight of him standing over Odin's dead body with a bloody knife in his hand, I feel like she'd kinda like him. and when he finds out that Odin claimed to love her but locked her away just like he did to him, I think Loki would kinda like her, too. Thor's already off on earth and content to stay there for quite a few years, so... new king and queen of Asgard, anyone? 👀

[lexytoga]

just rewatching loki, since i started watching agatha and hawkeye, just relazing what if loki ended up like sylvie if frigga didnt show him love, personlly i think frigga was the one who kept loki from crossing a line he might regert, and now seeing sylvie being more violent, more rude towards people cause she didnt fully grow up with her timeline frigga's motherly care, even in the comics, frigga is pretty strict towards loki and loki ended up being a mad king, but ofc he still loved her, i dont know just trying to justify her actions cause i think she had reasons and i like her alot lmao XD she was good in S1 kinda annoying in S2 (this is not sylvie x loki post but I dont mind the ship!)

[lazyveran]

sylvanas but she looks like a weird spooky corpse

[erenfox]

you know what breaks my heart the most?

seeing sylvie hate in the sylvie/sylki tag

or if not hate, just straight up passive-aggressiveness and praises abt l0kius

in the, lemme remind you, sylvie/sylki tag

[nostalgia-tblr]

i read fic recently that kept going on about how tiny smol ikkle wee Sylvie is, and every time I said "no she fucking isn't" out loud until I'd had enough of that and moved on to something else.

[thebeesareback]

I've noticed that there's been surprisingly little discussion around Helaena's prophecy in the latest HOTD episode. I think it's about Sylvie, and that means some big news might reach Rhaynera.

GRRM likes to reuse character models with slightly different names, like Aemond and Daemon, or Larys and Varys. The latter both hold the position of Master of Whisperers and, throughout ASOIAF, Varys calls his spies his "little birds" and talks of them "singing" rumours to him.

In The Smallfolk, Helaena looks at her bugs and says that one of them has stopped singing, wondering aloud at the cause. We know from series one that Larys' sigil is a firefly, so he's associated with bugs, too. Perhaps one of his bugs has stopped singing?

At a different point in the episode, we see Dyana and Sylvie having an obviously staged conversation in a tavern. It's supposed to encourage the other patrons to support Rhaynera. We know that Dyana works for Mysaria, because of the shot of her welcoming Rhaynera's handmaid in Regent. Dyana probably does this because she was raped by Aegon and knows how awful he is. I think that Sylvie might be upset because of the way Aemond treated her in The Burning Mill.

Aemond has some pretty intense mummy issues, which makes sense. He seems to have a sexual relationship with Sylvie, but there's also the desire for praise, validation and comfort. Incidentally, if any sex workers read this, I'd love to know how common it is IRL. In Rhaynera the Cruel, Aemond confides in Sylvie and tells her that he didn't mean to kill Luce and that he regrets what happened. This information doesn't get passed on, as far as we know. However, possibly due to Aemond's behaviour in The Burning Mill ("one whore is much like another"), Sylvie now seems to be working for Mysaria - hence the tavern scene in The Smallfolk.

There is another option. Sylvie tells Aemond that when princes lose their temper, the smallfolk die. She's not wrong - although in this context, Aemond actually killed another member of the nobility. During their conversation in Rhaynera the Cruel, Aemond seems reflective, and perhaps he thought about what she'd said. Nevertheless, he doesn't seem to be any better at keeping his temper, as seen in the council scene in The Smallfolk. Sylvie knows what he can do when he's angry; she knows he can't keep his temper; and she acts accordingly to undermine the authority of the Green regime.

Now, I'm not a spymaster. Although, if I was, I probably wouldn't share that on Tumblr. Bad spy etiquette. But IF I was a spymaster and I was employing the former, um, consort (?) to the Prince, the first thing I'd ask him would be about the Prince. And a fairly significant thing for Sylvie to tell Mysaria would be that Aemond didn't mean to kill Luce.

From all of this i think we can deduce that Mysaria has this information, Helaena knows that the spy situation has changed in some way, and I think it's likely that Mysaria will pass this on when she thinks it's appropriate. It would be a great way for a, um, favourite(?), of the queen to grow closer to her. Emotional intimacy strengthens relationships.

TLDR: Helaena says that her bugs don't sing. Bugs are associated with a spymaster (Larys), and one spy seems to have switched allegiance. This spy was close to Aemond and may have "sung" his secrets to a different spymaster, hence Helaena's confusion about the bug/spy no longer singing (to the same person). Rhaynera might now get Aemond's secret: he lost control of Vaegar and killed Luce accidentally.

PLEASE don't post any spoilers! Thanks ❤

[enigma-the-mysterious]

Sylvie: Fuck the monarchy!

Aramis: I am trying!