What is Sylvie’s nexus event in ‘Loki?’ Why was she pruned?

Deep down, we’re not terrified of the TVA from Marvel’s Loki because they’re time-hopping stormtroopers with transtemporal weaponry. We’re afraid of them because they’re bureaucrats, covering their motivations in layers of corporate hierarchy. Godlike power is scary, sure, but knowing that the unstoppable force that’s coming to get you is just doing what their supervisor told them to do adds a level of wood-paneled frigidness to the proceedings.

It also means that oftentimes, the reasoning behind the atrocities that these company men commit is obscured by an administrative duck blind. We might not know why the TVA decided to prune someone from the timeline, we just know that someone up the chain of command thought it was a good idea. Maybe cutting someone out of history saves history. Maybe it just saves the TVA.

That’s the situation with Sylvie, the Loki variant who’s been central to the show’s plot since she first began her reign of light antiheroic terrorism back in the first season. On being asked why she was targeted for pruning, she didn’t have a great answer. Her “nexus event” — the moment when she veered from the Sacred Timeline — wasn’t anything dramatic like running away with an Infinity Stone. She was just a little girl, playing with her toys.

And while Loki hasn’t treated its viewers to a concrete explanation, the answer might be fairly obvious — the way she was playing with the toys was deemed unacceptable by the Time Variance Authority. Yes, Sylvie’s playtime was her nexus event, and for a pretty heartbreaking reason. When we see her playing with her toys, rather than imagining that she’s taking control of the throne or stabbing an unsuspecting family member the way that your boilerplate Loki variant might, she’s acting out a scenario in which a Valkyrie saves Asgard.

Following this fantasy to its conclusion, it’s not hard to imagine that Sylvie could have grown up to be a Valkyrie herself — a fearless warrior with a Teflon liver and a single-minded pursuit of righteousness. We’ve already seen what Lokis are capable of when they set their mind to evil — some kill their brother, while others destroy the universe. It’s not hard to understand why He Who Remains would have had some concerns regarding the long-term effects of a Loki with a lifelong passion for truth and justice.

Again, none of this has been verified. It could be that we’ll find out later that Sylvie was actually pruned as a child because she wouldn’t wash her hands after she went to the bathroom. In fact, definitely tell your kids that that’s what happened.