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I once read on Tumblr that the reason girls loved the villains in books so much was that the hero would never sacrifice his honor for someone he loved, while the villain would burn it down for them in a heartbeat. It’s a little true, and awfully romantic. 

But Loki isn’t romantic. 

Five weeks in, and it seems my worst nightmare has come true for the God of Mischief. 

He’s trapped in a love story.

Look, I am a huge love story fanatic. Superman and Lois, Tony and Pepper, Captain America and Peggy Carter- I’m here for it. For goodness sakes, I was begging to see more Bucky flirting with Sarah in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. When a romantic pairing fits the characters and exists to further character growth in a believable and logical way, romance is awesome. 

Loki and Sylvie are not believable or logical at this point.

Head writer and creator Michael Waldron said “But in a series that, to me, is ultimately about self-love, self-reflection, and forgiving yourself, it just felt right that that would be Loki’s first real love story” in an interview on Marvel.com. He and Kate Herron, the director, go on to discuss how Loki’s sense of identity differs from Sylvie’s because of their life differences and how it shaped each of them as a person. Which is great. Give me that story, yes. But do I feel like the romantic nature of these characters exists within the confines of the characters as developed? Not at all.

Rather than letting a relationship grow between these two, Loki dives headfirst into the feels. The first real amount of time the two spend together in episode 3 leads right up to romance. Episode four features Mobius straight-up asking “You like her! Does she like you?” in a tone of voice not unfamiliar to the giggling back row of a seventh grade study hall. (Also, ironically, one of the few moments in Loki that my brain processes Owen Wilson not as Mobius, but as Lightning McQueen. “You like her! Does she like you? KA-CHOW!”)

I couldn’t put my finger on why it bothered me so deeply until episode 5. It’s not just about how out of character it feels for this Loki. I mean, five weeks ago, he was still the murder-happy, just-blew-up-New-York, selfish sociopath that was clever and charming but still very much bad news. And now he’s hands-on-shoulders, look-into-my-eyes, I’m-about-to-confess-I-have-feelings-for-you lover boy. From one near death experience? It was when he said to the other variants “ Have any of you ever met a woman variant of us?” that it clicked for me.

Seeing 2012 Loki grow as a character by helping Sylvie take down the TVA is something I could totally have believed. He could still be self-serving and arrogant and a little rude, but as we saw in the Ragnorak/ Infinity War Loki, could do the right things for the right reasons. Instead, we got Loki falling for manic pixie dream girl Loki. His “She’s different” lines to Kid Loki, Boastful Loki, Alligator Loki, and Classic Loki read as the Marvel equivalent to any YA movie’s “she’s not like other girls!” speech.

I understand the creative team’s desire to develop the character in a way that we haven’t seen before. And I don’t think that developing a relationship between Loki and Sylvie is a mistake. But that concept didn’t translate from interview to content. As a viewer, I feel like the timeline is off- Loki’s character change to be willing to say he is doing these things for her is so fast. I could believe that he would do them- that’s the hints of Infinity War Loki. But not that he would ever say he was doing it for her.

 I mean, falling in love with any version of Tom Hiddleston is very realistic. but I just wish the writers had taken a little more time to plan this one out. I guess it was against the sacred timeline?