re: Loki Season 2: Season Long Discussion Thread

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My confusion is thus:

Victor Timely was born in the late 19th century.

But when He Who Remains explained his history to Loki and Sylvie at the end of Season 1, he explainted that all of the other Kang variant's were form the 31st Century.

In the comics, Kang is from the 31st Century and Victor Timely is an alter ego of his in the 19th Century

So how can Victor Timely be a variant if he's from the 19th century?

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I don't know the comics storyline, but just spitballing here a bit:

Emergency backup plan by one of the more thoughtful and altruistic variants (probably He Who Remains)...

Kang is ALWAYS brilliant in any timeline, and is the key to this problem. He always figures out the alternate universe issue and how to cross the boundaries. He's the one you need.

Therefore, during the Kang Wars, you go to one of the defeated universes, go back in time there and abduct the infant Kang before you prune that timeline. You then place him in 19th Century Earth on your timeline universe.
Amazing period, tons of scientific study and research, in a pure sense. Edison, Einstein, Tesla, etc all going on about the same era. Victor Timely will grow safely there and make the same theory he did in the 31st Century. However, the state of technology will be such that he can't conduct actual experiments, thus can't achieve the same breakthrough. Edison's well-oiled political machine will win out, and like Tesla, Victor Timely will fade into obscurity, another brilliant and possibly mad scientist who ultimately wasn't the driving force behind advancements. He may or may not be remembered, because it was all crazy theories, no substance. He will safely live out his existence, and pass away unnoticed.

Any later and he poses a risk by having too much access to tech to construct his devices, any earlier and he isn't exposed to the other knowledge to build his own theories on.
Taken as an infant- you are assuming all Kangs are essentially the same to start, and shaped by the cultures they grow up in. And perhaps this one was one of the more benign or gentler Kangs anyway, just one that didn't win out.
Anyway, he grows without influence of malice, so he's a good person in general.

You leave him there as a "break glass in case of emergency" option, as displayed in this show. In the event you win the Kang Wars (as He Who Remains did), but get killed off in another way (as by Sylvie, for example): you leave instructions to go retrieve Victor Timely. He's been prepped and groomed (they saw to that by leaving him the TVA Handbook), so he 'WILL UNDERSTAND', although until that moment he only does at a theoretical level. Once he's brought to the TVA, after acclimating physically, he then assumes the same role He Who Remains did, preserving the sacred timeline (ie the one he's present in), and pruning the others so no other Kangs emerge.
*Since there's one Victor Timely, there would be others; and you just don't know what will happen.*

As Loki speculated on a past episode, killing He Who Remains was a mistake that opened the path for other Kangs, many of which are more sinister.

I wonder- Renslayer being a variant Black woman... could she be a variant of the woman that raised Timely? She seems to have a bit of a mama-bear instinct, and was placed in a high position. She might be the protector of Timely.
That might be the 'secret' that Miss Minutes hints at.