A horrifying police state controls all. Its terrifying power stops anyone who dissents from the correct point of view. Political dissidents are “tried” in a kangaroo court without a jury and sentenced to immediate execution. Propaganda fills the eyes and ears of all from the moment they wake up to their last moments before sleep. You might read this and think its about 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 (which is my personal favorite dystopian novel); instead, this is the premise to one of Marvel’s recent projects, LOKI. Spoilers ahead in my brief look at a piece of media that I believe brings up an interesting worldview discussion.

In the world the writers of Loki create, the proper flow of time is protected and administered by the Time Variance Authority (TVA). This organization captures Loki for breaking the rules of time, he teams up with them to capture a more dangerous version of himself, eventually he teams up with this version of himself, and these two take down the TVA (sort of).

When you enter the TVA facility in the first episode, it feels like a parody of bureaucracy much like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Throughout the series, the viewer is bombarded by TVA propaganda, and, despite the organization consistent use of totalitarian tactics to rule the multiverse, eventually you come to root for them. Shortly after you think they may be the good guys, Lady Loki (Sylvie) reminds you that the TVA kidnaps and murders children who are not supposed to exist. In the final episode, we find out that the TVA is actually run by a single man, “He Who Remains,” who used his wisdom to protect the multiverse from endless war, by deciding upon and maintaining, “The Sacred Timeline.” He Who Remains offers Loki and Sylvie a choice, they can kill him, which will disband the TVA, giving everyone free will, producing chaos, or they can take over the TVA and administer the proper flow of time in a way they see fit.

I think the real battle here is not between the Loki duo and He Who Remains; instead, the fight is between He Who Remains and Thomas Sowell (not literally, because Sowell is 90 years old and a real person). He Who Remains believes in Sowell’s unconstrained vision for the human person, described in A Conflict of Visions. While Sylvie seems to espouse a constrained vision of the human person.

According to Sowell, individuals believe mankind is constrained or unconstrained. The constrained vision insists that man’s nature is limited and self interested. We cannot know all, and we are not ultimately perfect. We have to protect individuals because no one truly knows better than everyone else. Therefore, those who espouse the constrained vision of mankind prefer the rule of law and seek to divide power; they respect decentralized processes to produce the most acceptable trade off. Meanwhile, the unconstrained vision puts forth that man is essentially good and perfectible. People who accept this vision of reality, tend to use utilitarian logic. They believe that, with enough information and control, a centralized authority can absorb all of the data and render decisions for the good of the whole that may not be visible by those at the individual level. Sowell insists that each individual’s vision of the human person acts as worldview through which they interpret most everything.*

He Who Remains holds the unconstrained view of the human person (at least for himself). He is just an ordinary man, who toiled tirelessly to build the perfect timeline for the universe. In episode 6, he insists that all of the sacrifices made were needed to build a harmonious outcome. Without the TVA ruling with an iron first, there would be chaos and suffering across the multiverse. Sylvie, on the other hand, argues that his narrative is a manipulation. She finds it inconceivable that, “A bazillion boogiemen are going to turn up just because we give people free will.” She believes people should have free will because centralized power crushes individuals, like herself. It seems that she values individual liberties because she believes free people will produce a better outcome; no one man or woman knows best. Despite setting up the TVA as the villain, Marvel seems to agree with He Who Remains. They have Loki, the series protagonist, agree with He Who Remains’ assessment. Loki wants to take the throne because he believes that a central power can build a better world than the chaos of individual choice.** In the end, when Sylvie kills He Who Remains, we see Loki go back to a dystopia ruled by an even worse dictator than before, presumably caused because no one was in control. *

It seems to me that the writers of Loki see mankind through the unconstrained vision. Given the right information, man can plan out the universe in the best possible way. The world is merely a complicated equation to be solved. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Hayek describes the problem of local knowledge in his paper, The Use of Knowledge In Society. He puts forth that information is inherently local. We cannot properly aggregate people’s preferences to insert into a spreadsheet for central planners to build a society. However, I would argue that a misunderstanding of the allocation of knowledge is not the problem at the center here. Sowell’s book asserts that these two groups of people simply conceive of mankind differently. The more I explain the issues that arise from complex local knowledge, the more that a believer in the unconstrained will insist that we simply have to work very hard to compile the right knowledge in the hands of the right people because a lack of coordination will get us nowhere. I think this is why He Who Remains comes from the 31st century. This detail is essential because the writers had to place him in the distant future. Certainly by then, people will be smart enough and possess the needed technology to solve the world’s problems.

Ultimately, I accept the constrained view of mankind because man is sinful, and we need a savior. Romans 3:23 clearly states that we all fall short of the glory of God. The poetic portions of Scripture strongly emphasize how big and separate God is from mankind. Job 12 says,

¹³ “To God belong wisdom and power;
    counsel and understanding are his.
¹⁴ What he tears down cannot be rebuilt;
    those he imprisons cannot be released.
¹⁵ If he holds back the waters, there is drought;
    if he lets them loose, they devastate the land.
¹⁶ To him belong strength and insight;
    both deceived and deceiver are his.
¹⁷ He leads rulers away stripped
    and makes fools of judges.
¹⁸ He takes off the shackles put on by kings
    and ties a loincloth around their waist.
¹⁹ He leads priests away stripped
    and overthrows officials long established.
²⁰ He silences the lips of trusted advisers
    and takes away the discernment of elders.
²¹ He pours contempt on nobles
    and disarms the mighty.
²² He reveals the deep things of darkness
    and brings utter darkness into the light.
²³ He makes nations great, and destroys them;
    he enlarges nations, and disperses them.
²⁴ He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason;
    he makes them wander in a trackless waste.
²⁵ They grope in darkness with no light;
    he makes them stagger like drunkards.”

I think this passage really shows us how inferior our minds our to God’s. He is worlds ahead of us and beyond us. He can send the water this way and that, he controls the rulers of the world, and his acts are irrepressible. He is the one who is essentially good, and He is already perfect. We are small people who cannot even pretend to hold the power of our God. So yes, Loki was worth the watch because it reminded me of how limited I am compared to an amazing and omniscient God, and I think it presents us an opportunity to engage the culture in a conversation that leads to the gospel.

*It can be helpful to think of these two visions as opposite end of a spectrum.

**A fellow writer here, Stan Schwartz, helped me compile some of my thoughts on the series. Stan interpreted the characters’ visions a bit differently than I did. While I do not fully agree with his thoughts on Loki the character, I think his thoughts add a lot to the discussion, so I have put them below.

My larger concern is with Sylvie and where she fits into Sowell’s paradigm. You are right to develop this insight of He Who Remains as unconstrained, and your vision of the importance of the importance of his character coming from the future is a notable contribution. However, I don’t think Sylvie is a paragon of the constrained vision. To me, she seems to believe that the abolition of power will result in utopia, not more chaos. Like He Who Remains then, she believes that man is perfectible, if given the right conditions, but they disagree on what those conditions are, which is why they put so much effort into trying to sustain or kill the TVA. As you rightly note, the constrained vision believes in the division of power, but not its abolition. Man being imperfect still needs some authority. Sylvie sees no room for middle-ground or adjustment in my understanding – she constantly talks about wanting to totally overthrow and ruin the TVA as her only mission, her fanatical aim. She’s not interested in the hard work of cultivating community because she’s not worried about a bazillion boogiemen…when she should be. We are all sinful after all! Sylvie is He Who Remains’ mirror. He only applies the unconstrained vision to himself, while she only applies it to all others. They both believe in some sort of final state though, so it’s a war of utopias. 
It’s Loki, I think, who shows some signs of the constrained vision. Our protagonist learns the value of enjoying the little moments, like singing on the train, and hopes to possibly start a family some day. He’s not obsessed with power, because he knows that some should exist, but that it is an imperfect tool. He wants to make himself better (or he learns to want this) and spends his effort along those lines, rather than being committed to an all-or-nothing fight over a single institution, like the progressives’ quest to “fix” the Supreme Court in our day. I think though that Loki’s constant suffering does indicate that the creators of the show don’t believe that the constrained vision is really a viable way to live. It’s nice if you want to try it, but you’ll just be dragged along by the real powers, the fanatics, or left behind in the dust of crumbling worlds. I think you are right that Sylvie values the individual above all, but I’m not sure that’s constrained.