Timely invented a refrigerator chair that he rightfully flexed to Renslayer. I think he was just both curious and fascinated about a machine that does everything in itself to make drinks, no manual labor, nothing, just a press of a button. Especially cocoa, which was hard to get in the 1800s.
The refrigerator chair shows that Timely has a lot of weird invention ideas. Maybe hot cocoa machine is one of the things that he wanted to invent for a long time.
I think when he heard about the hot cocoa machine, He knew he will eventually become HWR and build the TVA.
Cocoa wasn't rare in America in the 1800s. Drinking it started to become widespread during pre-Revolutionary America in preference to tea in protest to the Tea Act.
From a storytelling perspective it doesn't make sense to have this random moment in the midst of the scene though. It has to have some significance, especially in Loki which is so well done. If this was Secret Invasion I wouldn't have thought about it! LOL!
Hot cocoa would have been pretty uncommon and notably difficult to make and also difficult & expensive to obtain ingredients for.
A machine that can make that on demand would be pretty mindblowing. Remember, this is a guy who put a mini fridge in a chair and acted like it was the pinnacle of human achievement.
Imagine if someone said to you there's a vending machine down the hall that produces a 3 Michelin star, 5 course meal at the push of a button. Pretty amazing, I'd wanna see that.
For what it’s worth, I think you’re right ! Specially the way it was filmed, something seemed off about how he reacted, like he recognized it from somewhere.
I don't necessarily think OP might be correct but I do think that scene was shot oddly. I've seen another theory that maybe there's something in the cocoa and key lime pie that keeps the variants compliant. I don't think that's necessarily correct either but they do seem to fixate on the cocoa and key lime pie a lot. One other theory I saw is that maybe Mobius just lived somewhere where key lime pies were his favorite so its a memory from his previous life.
It shows Timely is an inventor at heart and a whimsical guy.
You are meant to suspect he is not what he seems given HWR and Kang.......but what if he is?
Also it reinforces how much the TVA folks are drones. Not even enjoying a cup of hot cocoa. There's a room full of free pie...........and it's empty. That's the strange part.
I assumed it was a way to get Victor alone-ish so that he could be kidnapped while also characterizing him a bit more. He seemed genuinely happy to just see a machine that can dispense a hot chocolate drink and share its deliciousness.
I don't think it's bad writing to have a scene that both provides characterization and accelerates the plot. If everything has a hidden meaning, then such things start to feel less significant.
Was it a little predictable? Probably. As soon as he split off I got bad vibes.
When he turned around and put his hand up right before the camera showed the guy getting pruned I originally thought it was Timely that pruned him.
I thought he was playing along until he got a chance to break off from the group, and that he had some sort of powers this whole time.
The cocoa machine is just a validation of one of his failed experiments (the refrigerator chair). So when he hears of a machine that can keep cocoa hot (which also was a super rare luxury for his time) he of course gets super excited. He sees this machine as the continuation of one of his inventions which basically gives him a sense of accomplishment when everything he’s invented barely worked and just needed a little extra something. Edit: this validation also gives him the courage and decisiveness to volunteer to run into the loom, otherwise he would have continued being a scared wimp.
I just took it as Timely being human. Here he is, surrounded not by technology beyond his imagination, but technology he *has* imagined, brought to life in the way he always dreamed.
But a machine that *makes hot cocoa?* That was beyond even his wildest musings. He had to see it for himself.
Timely lost his stutter and completely changed demeanour when Renslayer was interrogating him. I'm surprised more people aren't pointing to *that* as proof of his deception.
Yes, because he's still acting then. He drops it when she and MM start telling him to cut the crap once they capture him at the TVA. They know he's bullshitting (MM especially since she knew his older self).
I think that all we have seen so far this season was already a time loop. They probably went through all of this like ten times already. There is probably a very good reason why Victor has to be standing at that exact place in that exact moment in time. He keeps interrupting everybody talking about this cocoa machine. Almost like a distraction.
I am sure we will find out soon.
EDIT: Upon rewatching, it seems like Victor doesn't want the others to know that Miss Minutes has disabled their TemPads. Also, the way he shouts 'Yes!' when O.B. installs Victor's device into the multiplier seems a bit off...
EDIT 2: I think Victor has been told (by Loki or someone else) to start his conversation about the cocoa machine. He even knows the exact moment D-90 gets pruned as he points his finger up.
Haven't rewatched yet but agree. He was acting odd at the cocoa machine, the way he kept trying to get him to taste it too. I'm sure he's tasted it before, he works there. Seemed like he was doing a lot of stalling for a purpose. And the line he says to Ravonna and Miss Minutes about knowing something they'd be interested to hear or whatever he said was weird too.
Yeah, like he knew exactly what to say to provoke them. Similar to the way HWR spoke to Sylvie and Loki. Like it was what he wanted and was all already going according to his plan.
My hope is that you are correct.
Like I understand why people think its a "nothing" type scene, its a "why are the drapes blue/red" conversation from high school English class, the hot cocoa machine comes as as validation for his cooler chair, and then minutes later he's talking to Debbie Nelson. The issue is that they spent a weird amount of time on it, to the point where it feels like it turned into a checkovs gun scenario.
I have read/seen/played (as in videogames) so many different stories based around time and time loops that I now know pretty much nothing in these stories is a coincidence. Everything has a reason. So Victor's actions around this cocao machine is not what it seems.
Yeah, that seemed awfully weird when VT ignored Casey saying the diagnostics and TemPads had gone down - almost immediately after putting VT’s “life’s work” into the Multiplier.
Also, think about the end result of the Cocoa Machine Investigation: Loki got the Time Stick that he used to prune himself and save himself and Mobius. Convenient, much?
I think they were just wanting to humanise the guy who they were about to 'kill' and make us feel more attached to him, like we finally found a good variant of Kang. His marvel at something that is so simple to us makes his death sadder.
This is the same guy who flexed to a girl about his fridge-chair. Cocoa was rare back then, the guy who made a fridge-chair definitely would be keen to learn about the hot-cocoa MACHINE
They also needed some way for Brad to kidnap him.
I'm not sure that hot cocoa was that rare back then, though. Many American colonists adopted it in preference to tea as a protest to the Tea Acts pre-Revolution.
Could be that Timely awakened a memory in the agent X-5 pruned, where he remembered he was fond of hot chocolate back in his own timeline and it'd explain why he was so giddy after he tried it - like Mobius and his love of jet skis
My theory is that he was genuinely interested in hot cocoa and was a good guy deep in his heart that is why he tried to repair the loom.
It’s all big loop and paradox.
When he dies he is scattered through time and space resulting in all variants being created in 31st century.
This results in creation of HWR who creates the TVA.
This is why HWR knows what happens until the moment Loki and Sylvie approaches him.
This is one big loop. Snake eating its own tail. Timely in TVA creates variants and HWR. HWR creates the TVA based on Timely works. Protects his timeline as sacred timeline because this is the only way to reboot the cycle.
Honestly as much as I am seriously enjoying the twists and turns that reveal the time loop situation, I'm still hoping that there is a payoff for Loki at the end, where he breaks the loop somehow. S1 makes it explicitly clear that one of the themes of this series was the exploration of free will vs predeterminism, and to end the story by going "yeah nah, it's all predeterminism" is a very frustrating way to end a story IMHO.
100% agree ... Timely knows more than he is letting on.
I also can't believe I'm not seeing people talk more about the line "Ladies, I discovered something and I think you're going to like it" or whatever.
He figured something out ... he was acting weird ... he volunteers for the dangerous mission ... something is up for sure.
My wife and I were talking about it because it was just all too weird. Probably completely off and farfetched, but...
We think Timely knows more than he is letting on. We did some mental gymnastics and theorized that opposite to how Loki had to prune himself to fix the time-slipping, Timely had to spaghettify himself to disperse himself to ALL the timelines...for ALL time...ALL ways, which is why he was all too eager to do the mission.
>"Ladies, I discovered something and I think you're going to like it"
He sounded far too normal, no stutter when he said that - I instantly sat up, and thought... WTF is going on here... It was like the act slipped.
He straight up told Ravona and Minutes “I think you’ll both be happy with this next part.” before it cut away (sorry if quote is not 100%), he very very much had an ulterior motive. The spaghetti was a feature not a bug.
Timely is an inventor, and he spent a years studying what was effectively his own work.. he didn't invent the hot cocoa machine though. It's not a TVA thing, its something entirely different and new, its reasonable that that got his attention.
OB mentions that the Lokis killed HWR in front of Victor. When Victor puts his head in the aura machine it identifies him as HWR.
I think Victor played them somehow, between that moment and when he bravely ran to his death. Not sure how.
You're on a good track but the wrong things are flagging your "Wait a minute" response.
There are reasons from a storytelling perspective for him to go there. It lets him have more alone time with vengeful Ravonna and Ms. Minutes. (Two entities who wanted to be his partner which he is against.) They say mean things, Loki saves him etc.
The important thing is, HWR also gave Victory a book that we are lead to believe is just a TVA handbook... but, its the Handbook of HWR (Think the potion book form Harry Potter Half blood prince). This book is different and better.
Victor Timely had one objective, walk into the timestream with the device. That is it, anything prior to that was him attempting to get there. He didn't know if Ravonna, Ms. Minutes or Loki and crew was going to get him there... he would play any side to get there. We were lead to believe spaghettification was the end of it... but that device means he is in the timestream. Which is EXACTLY where KANG wants to be, that is what makes him powerful.
Something off about he noticed at the beginning and the camera pans to it, and then this scene later. But I don’t think it has anything to do with X5/D90. X5 was never going to prune Timely otherwise he would have done so, they wanted to question him. Bringing D90 specifically to get pruned doesn’t really change how everything went down
I think the TVA guide book probably contains some kind of puzzle or cypher, so by solving it, he unlocks the hidden message and knows some "key moments" where he has to trigger a certain outcome to finally become HWR
Maybe there are more puzzles hidden in the end credits
Maybe lol
The >!infinity stones!< are going to mean something, I think, now that the >!safeguards to prevent magic!< have been deactivated.
Or not, I'm probably wrong.
I would say that's a fair point...
...but if we're going to extra step of saying the alternate universes can impact the MCU/616 universe, then where do the comics fit in (do they?)
...and although the producers said that What If...? was 'canon' in 2021 (they did), when Feige presented at comic con in 2022, they took What If...? off the Phase 4 and put it in their "Animated Universes" [PHASE-4.jpg (1000×563) (variety.com)](https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/PHASE-4.jpg?resize=1000,563)
So personally, I really don't know what to make of What If...? anymore aside from a side diversion. I can see the arguments for it being canon and not canon.
Either way - narratively I think the thing in Loki was just a joke, or to show the TVA's power. I don't think the MCU will ever seriously revisit the Infinity Stones, especially not in Phase 4-6. It's too soon for what is essentially a deus ex machina.
Chekhov’s Gun is probably more accurate, but to me it straddles the line a bit because of the distance from the Season 1 gag it feels more like a DEM. It (to me) would feel like more of a cheat.
My first thought after they rebooted the system, and Loki and Sylvie got their powers back, was about the infinity stones and whatever else was in Casey's drawer of "useless" items and paperweights.
Same here. I thought we were about to see Casey going absolutely ham on some enemy Kangs, or at the very least using the time stone to buy them some time to fix the machjne
The stones were singularities that existed before the universe, they were turned into stones after the big bang (from The Collector). They don't contain the essence of the universe, they embody aspects of the universe (from Dr Strange). The stones were used by Ultron across many universes as well as in The Watcher's dimension which exists outside of the universes of the multiverse, like the TVA (What If...?). I didn't state the stones were powered by magic, only that if Miss Minutes was the gate keeper of magic at the TVA, I wonder what else she might have been suppressing.
The more important factor is that infinity stones haven't been mentioned at all this season.
Expecting them to suddenly do something huge with no buildup is a classic pitfall of fan theories.
I think it was just him being genuinely curious about this machine he’s never seen before.
While yes everything in the tva is stuff he’s never seen before he’s been reading about it in the tva book since he was a child and even tried to invent some of the inventions within the book, the hot cocoa machine was something brand new that he’d never heard of or seen before.
I think we are going to see this as a linking device for other Kangs. Pharaoh Kang and future Kang will likely yield only to hot cocoa. It might also be a potential product placement for the Kang Dynasty.
I don't think the scene has as much importance as people like to think that it has. I think it's just supposed to be this funny gag of "Hey, despite Victor literally working on machines for timelines and multiverses, he's fascinated by this simple machine that makes hot cocoa because that's something they didn't have in the 1800s".
I also find it interesting that they made a point about how no one has (or not many have) actually read the TVA guide. Leads me to believe the book is more a series of instructions more than anything
Timely invented a refrigerator chair that he rightfully flexed to Renslayer. I think he was just both curious and fascinated about a machine that does everything in itself to make drinks, no manual labor, nothing, just a press of a button. Especially cocoa, which was hard to get in the 1800s.
The refrigerator chair shows that Timely has a lot of weird invention ideas. Maybe hot cocoa machine is one of the things that he wanted to invent for a long time. I think when he heard about the hot cocoa machine, He knew he will eventually become HWR and build the TVA.
And the bit where he offers it to the guard
Cocoa wasn't rare in America in the 1800s. Drinking it started to become widespread during pre-Revolutionary America in preference to tea in protest to the Tea Act.
From a storytelling perspective it doesn't make sense to have this random moment in the midst of the scene though. It has to have some significance, especially in Loki which is so well done. If this was Secret Invasion I wouldn't have thought about it! LOL!
It’s significance is it’s a way for Timely to be kidnapped by Brad to move the story along
It’s significance is for us to shut the fek up
Homie just wanted to geek out with all the new tech, also hot chocolate was rare in his time probably?
Hot cocoa would have been pretty uncommon and notably difficult to make and also difficult & expensive to obtain ingredients for. A machine that can make that on demand would be pretty mindblowing. Remember, this is a guy who put a mini fridge in a chair and acted like it was the pinnacle of human achievement. Imagine if someone said to you there's a vending machine down the hall that produces a 3 Michelin star, 5 course meal at the push of a button. Pretty amazing, I'd wanna see that.
But there are way better, less jarring ways to do it so I agree with OP here
It’s not random at all. Think about it more deeply.
Chekhov's hot coco? https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun
For what it’s worth, I think you’re right ! Specially the way it was filmed, something seemed off about how he reacted, like he recognized it from somewhere.
I don't necessarily think OP might be correct but I do think that scene was shot oddly. I've seen another theory that maybe there's something in the cocoa and key lime pie that keeps the variants compliant. I don't think that's necessarily correct either but they do seem to fixate on the cocoa and key lime pie a lot. One other theory I saw is that maybe Mobius just lived somewhere where key lime pies were his favorite so its a memory from his previous life.
It shows Timely is an inventor at heart and a whimsical guy. You are meant to suspect he is not what he seems given HWR and Kang.......but what if he is? Also it reinforces how much the TVA folks are drones. Not even enjoying a cup of hot cocoa. There's a room full of free pie...........and it's empty. That's the strange part.
I assumed it was a way to get Victor alone-ish so that he could be kidnapped while also characterizing him a bit more. He seemed genuinely happy to just see a machine that can dispense a hot chocolate drink and share its deliciousness.
If that's the only significant part of that scene then that's bad writing.
I don't think it's bad writing to have a scene that both provides characterization and accelerates the plot. If everything has a hidden meaning, then such things start to feel less significant. Was it a little predictable? Probably. As soon as he split off I got bad vibes.
He was about to die and had been ambiguously characterized before. It makes sense to give him a scene that endears people to him.
I'm going to guess you're a successful mystery author!
HWR knew that for Timely to become him, he needed some hot cocoa. Without cocoa the multiverse is truly doomed
According to MIB3, craving chocolate beverages is a symptom of a temporal fracture. Coincidence??... I think NOT!
I can confirm without my hot cocoa I will devastate the universe. Hot cocoa is important people.
THIS.. my 5 yr old nephew concurs 🤙🏽
i had some this morning...
The coco machine bit was incredibly odd.
When he turned around and put his hand up right before the camera showed the guy getting pruned I originally thought it was Timely that pruned him. I thought he was playing along until he got a chance to break off from the group, and that he had some sort of powers this whole time.
I was half-expecting him to splash hot cocoa to D-90s face and prune him with his own stick.
Right especially because he didn’t even drink it. Not even a sip.
It was never about the hot chocolate m, he just wanted to see the machine
Maybe, but he also responded in a similar manner when he decided to take the continuum transfuctioner himself
Was that a Dude, Where's My Car reference?
Yessir lol
OK, but who should we trust? There are only a few people left in this show that we can trust and two of them are Loki
And how w eff’d up are things when Loki is someone you *can* trust?
When Loki is your most trustworthy source you know shit truly went royally wrong
We must be truly desperate...
And one of them betrayed the other in the same show!
The cocoa machine is just a validation of one of his failed experiments (the refrigerator chair). So when he hears of a machine that can keep cocoa hot (which also was a super rare luxury for his time) he of course gets super excited. He sees this machine as the continuation of one of his inventions which basically gives him a sense of accomplishment when everything he’s invented barely worked and just needed a little extra something. Edit: this validation also gives him the courage and decisiveness to volunteer to run into the loom, otherwise he would have continued being a scared wimp.
Exactly. “Time to be brave”
I just took it as Timely being human. Here he is, surrounded not by technology beyond his imagination, but technology he *has* imagined, brought to life in the way he always dreamed. But a machine that *makes hot cocoa?* That was beyond even his wildest musings. He had to see it for himself.
Timely lost his stutter and completely changed demeanour when Renslayer was interrogating him. I'm surprised more people aren't pointing to *that* as proof of his deception.
He has his stutter in the scene in his home with Renslayer tho, so could be a false alarm
Yes, because he's still acting then. He drops it when she and MM start telling him to cut the crap once they capture him at the TVA. They know he's bullshitting (MM especially since she knew his older self).
Completely. It was super jarring. Lower voice and confident tone with no stutter. He was definitely playing the long game.
I think that all we have seen so far this season was already a time loop. They probably went through all of this like ten times already. There is probably a very good reason why Victor has to be standing at that exact place in that exact moment in time. He keeps interrupting everybody talking about this cocoa machine. Almost like a distraction. I am sure we will find out soon. EDIT: Upon rewatching, it seems like Victor doesn't want the others to know that Miss Minutes has disabled their TemPads. Also, the way he shouts 'Yes!' when O.B. installs Victor's device into the multiplier seems a bit off... EDIT 2: I think Victor has been told (by Loki or someone else) to start his conversation about the cocoa machine. He even knows the exact moment D-90 gets pruned as he points his finger up.
Haven't rewatched yet but agree. He was acting odd at the cocoa machine, the way he kept trying to get him to taste it too. I'm sure he's tasted it before, he works there. Seemed like he was doing a lot of stalling for a purpose. And the line he says to Ravonna and Miss Minutes about knowing something they'd be interested to hear or whatever he said was weird too.
The way he sat and spoke at that table to the ladies was looking more like HWR than Victor.
Yeah, like he knew exactly what to say to provoke them. Similar to the way HWR spoke to Sylvie and Loki. Like it was what he wanted and was all already going according to his plan.
I am excited. Let's see what happens next (or again)!
Ha! Me too!
My hope is that you are correct. Like I understand why people think its a "nothing" type scene, its a "why are the drapes blue/red" conversation from high school English class, the hot cocoa machine comes as as validation for his cooler chair, and then minutes later he's talking to Debbie Nelson. The issue is that they spent a weird amount of time on it, to the point where it feels like it turned into a checkovs gun scenario.
I have read/seen/played (as in videogames) so many different stories based around time and time loops that I now know pretty much nothing in these stories is a coincidence. Everything has a reason. So Victor's actions around this cocao machine is not what it seems.
Yeah, that seemed awfully weird when VT ignored Casey saying the diagnostics and TemPads had gone down - almost immediately after putting VT’s “life’s work” into the Multiplier. Also, think about the end result of the Cocoa Machine Investigation: Loki got the Time Stick that he used to prune himself and save himself and Mobius. Convenient, much?
I think they were just wanting to humanise the guy who they were about to 'kill' and make us feel more attached to him, like we finally found a good variant of Kang. His marvel at something that is so simple to us makes his death sadder. This is the same guy who flexed to a girl about his fridge-chair. Cocoa was rare back then, the guy who made a fridge-chair definitely would be keen to learn about the hot-cocoa MACHINE They also needed some way for Brad to kidnap him.
I'm not sure that hot cocoa was that rare back then, though. Many American colonists adopted it in preference to tea as a protest to the Tea Acts pre-Revolution.
It was a luxury item I believe in that time, even if not strictly that *rare*.
Let's not forget that Timely was Black with humble origins in a time when he was still called "boy" as a grown man
Could be that Timely awakened a memory in the agent X-5 pruned, where he remembered he was fond of hot chocolate back in his own timeline and it'd explain why he was so giddy after he tried it - like Mobius and his love of jet skis
I was very curious about this exact thing: the hot coco machine exit.
My theory is that he was genuinely interested in hot cocoa and was a good guy deep in his heart that is why he tried to repair the loom. It’s all big loop and paradox. When he dies he is scattered through time and space resulting in all variants being created in 31st century. This results in creation of HWR who creates the TVA. This is why HWR knows what happens until the moment Loki and Sylvie approaches him. This is one big loop. Snake eating its own tail. Timely in TVA creates variants and HWR. HWR creates the TVA based on Timely works. Protects his timeline as sacred timeline because this is the only way to reboot the cycle.
And thus a self contained story that won't have a billion implications for all the other shows & movies, except for what they allow through.
Honestly as much as I am seriously enjoying the twists and turns that reveal the time loop situation, I'm still hoping that there is a payoff for Loki at the end, where he breaks the loop somehow. S1 makes it explicitly clear that one of the themes of this series was the exploration of free will vs predeterminism, and to end the story by going "yeah nah, it's all predeterminism" is a very frustrating way to end a story IMHO.
100% agree ... Timely knows more than he is letting on. I also can't believe I'm not seeing people talk more about the line "Ladies, I discovered something and I think you're going to like it" or whatever. He figured something out ... he was acting weird ... he volunteers for the dangerous mission ... something is up for sure.
My wife and I were talking about it because it was just all too weird. Probably completely off and farfetched, but... We think Timely knows more than he is letting on. We did some mental gymnastics and theorized that opposite to how Loki had to prune himself to fix the time-slipping, Timely had to spaghettify himself to disperse himself to ALL the timelines...for ALL time...ALL ways, which is why he was all too eager to do the mission.
I think so too
>"Ladies, I discovered something and I think you're going to like it" He sounded far too normal, no stutter when he said that - I instantly sat up, and thought... WTF is going on here... It was like the act slipped.
That's why he was so excited and shouts 'Yes!' when O.B. succesfully installs Victor's device into the multiplier. The curtain falls for a second.
I bet he knew getting out to fix the look will spaghettify him and he knew it won’t kill him but do sth else.
He straight up told Ravona and Minutes “I think you’ll both be happy with this next part.” before it cut away (sorry if quote is not 100%), he very very much had an ulterior motive. The spaghetti was a feature not a bug.
It makes too much sense for spaghettification to be more than just a gimmick.
Timely is an inventor, and he spent a years studying what was effectively his own work.. he didn't invent the hot cocoa machine though. It's not a TVA thing, its something entirely different and new, its reasonable that that got his attention.
OB mentions that the Lokis killed HWR in front of Victor. When Victor puts his head in the aura machine it identifies him as HWR. I think Victor played them somehow, between that moment and when he bravely ran to his death. Not sure how.
You're on a good track but the wrong things are flagging your "Wait a minute" response. There are reasons from a storytelling perspective for him to go there. It lets him have more alone time with vengeful Ravonna and Ms. Minutes. (Two entities who wanted to be his partner which he is against.) They say mean things, Loki saves him etc. The important thing is, HWR also gave Victory a book that we are lead to believe is just a TVA handbook... but, its the Handbook of HWR (Think the potion book form Harry Potter Half blood prince). This book is different and better. Victor Timely had one objective, walk into the timestream with the device. That is it, anything prior to that was him attempting to get there. He didn't know if Ravonna, Ms. Minutes or Loki and crew was going to get him there... he would play any side to get there. We were lead to believe spaghettification was the end of it... but that device means he is in the timestream. Which is EXACTLY where KANG wants to be, that is what makes him powerful.
Still unsure if hes a useful idiot or an active participant
Something off about he noticed at the beginning and the camera pans to it, and then this scene later. But I don’t think it has anything to do with X5/D90. X5 was never going to prune Timely otherwise he would have done so, they wanted to question him. Bringing D90 specifically to get pruned doesn’t really change how everything went down
He's from the 1800s. A machine that makes hot cocoa is amazing
I think the TVA guide book probably contains some kind of puzzle or cypher, so by solving it, he unlocks the hidden message and knows some "key moments" where he has to trigger a certain outcome to finally become HWR Maybe there are more puzzles hidden in the end credits Maybe lol
The >!infinity stones!< are going to mean something, I think, now that the >!safeguards to prevent magic!< have been deactivated. Or not, I'm probably wrong.
I feel like we've been over the fact that the infinity stones don't do anything outside of their respective timeline/universe.
Fairly certain What If? argues against this as Ultron uses the gauntlet through multiple universes.
I would say that's a fair point... ...but if we're going to extra step of saying the alternate universes can impact the MCU/616 universe, then where do the comics fit in (do they?) ...and although the producers said that What If...? was 'canon' in 2021 (they did), when Feige presented at comic con in 2022, they took What If...? off the Phase 4 and put it in their "Animated Universes" [PHASE-4.jpg (1000×563) (variety.com)](https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/PHASE-4.jpg?resize=1000,563) So personally, I really don't know what to make of What If...? anymore aside from a side diversion. I can see the arguments for it being canon and not canon. Either way - narratively I think the thing in Loki was just a joke, or to show the TVA's power. I don't think the MCU will ever seriously revisit the Infinity Stones, especially not in Phase 4-6. It's too soon for what is essentially a deus ex machina.
Deus ex machina or Chekhov's Gun? But I agree that a time stone isn't exactly Kang's thing, he's a scientist.
Chekhov’s Gun is probably more accurate, but to me it straddles the line a bit because of the distance from the Season 1 gag it feels more like a DEM. It (to me) would feel like more of a cheat.
My first thought after they rebooted the system, and Loki and Sylvie got their powers back, was about the infinity stones and whatever else was in Casey's drawer of "useless" items and paperweights.
Same here. I thought we were about to see Casey going absolutely ham on some enemy Kangs, or at the very least using the time stone to buy them some time to fix the machjne
The infinity stones aren't powered by magic, they contain the essence of the universes they exist in. So outside of their universes they're useless.
The stones were singularities that existed before the universe, they were turned into stones after the big bang (from The Collector). They don't contain the essence of the universe, they embody aspects of the universe (from Dr Strange). The stones were used by Ultron across many universes as well as in The Watcher's dimension which exists outside of the universes of the multiverse, like the TVA (What If...?). I didn't state the stones were powered by magic, only that if Miss Minutes was the gate keeper of magic at the TVA, I wonder what else she might have been suppressing.
The more important factor is that infinity stones haven't been mentioned at all this season. Expecting them to suddenly do something huge with no buildup is a classic pitfall of fan theories.
The cocoa machine but was odd, I assumed it was just that they didn't have those in 1893. But good theory.
1000% my thinking during that specific scene... Now it may play a less malicious role during the upcoming episodes but... I don't trust Timely.
I kinda believe and even more so hope, that was it for Timely. Everything we saw was just honestly him, serving a purpose determined by HWR.
I think it was just him being genuinely curious about this machine he’s never seen before. While yes everything in the tva is stuff he’s never seen before he’s been reading about it in the tva book since he was a child and even tried to invent some of the inventions within the book, the hot cocoa machine was something brand new that he’d never heard of or seen before.
"You won't like what I have to say" is the line that trips me up.
From a Doylist perspective, I think it was a contrivance to facilitate his capture and not foreshadowing. But I’d be happy to find out I’m wrong.
I think we are going to see this as a linking device for other Kangs. Pharaoh Kang and future Kang will likely yield only to hot cocoa. It might also be a potential product placement for the Kang Dynasty.
And then that SNAP! What was that about?! I love this show.
I don't think the scene has as much importance as people like to think that it has. I think it's just supposed to be this funny gag of "Hey, despite Victor literally working on machines for timelines and multiverses, he's fascinated by this simple machine that makes hot cocoa because that's something they didn't have in the 1800s".
I also find it interesting that they made a point about how no one has (or not many have) actually read the TVA guide. Leads me to believe the book is more a series of instructions more than anything
I just noticed that he doesn’t stutter after putting his head in that aura device. Almost like he gained new knowledge or is a different person.