The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Disney Plus series Loki has an old-timey, mysterious, and quite possibly nefarious organization known as the TVA at its center. For the sake of those who may only be jumping into Loki for the first time, we won’t be getting into the nitty gritty of its mission, the powers behind it, or its deep dark secrets.
Instead, we’ll jump right into what you’re here for – and hopefully save you some time rewinding back through the show until someone decides to name-drop the full name of the TVA. So, in the interest of your precious time, let’s dive straight in.
The TVA acronym in Loki
TVA stands for Time Variance Authority, a group that oversees the flow of time, with its ultimate purpose being to preserve ‘The Sacred Timeline,’ or the MCU’s story so far as we came to know it over the course of the Infinity Saga (Iron Man through Avengers: Endgame). So, what does this organization have to do with the God of Mischief, and why is it a focal point of the Disney Plus series?
Thanks to the Avengers running into a snafu with their retrieval of the Tesseract and the Space Stone contained within during their Time Heist to the Battle of New York in 2012, the Loki of that point in time manages to make an escape. Per the Sacred Timeline, Loki was supposed to be shipped off to Asgard and witness the events of Thor: The Dark World and beyond, hence the TVA’s intervention – and the beginning of the Loki television series.