Finding a New Glorious Purpose: Loki and the Failure of Materialism

Materialism and its modern manifestation of consumerism cast a seductive spell over today’s America. While in its thrall, we become obsessed with chasing all of the wondrous things that are certain to give our lives meaning. Surely after I get that promotion, things will be right. Or after I get that new car, or after, or after, or after—I’ll finally be happy. This is well-known to us modern mortals, but strangely enough, we find Marvel’s Loki (Tom Hiddleston) under the same spell at the beginning of his eponymously titled Disney+ series. In fact, I imagine this is part of the reason why so many of us have found ourselves sympathizing with the trickster in his trials throughout his first solo outing: we quickly come to recognize something of ourselves in him.

Materialism mesmerizes us, as it does Loki, because it’s a way to place ourselves at the center of the universe, or at least of our own little universe composed of products and even people all existing to serve us. This is part of what C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory, called “the enchantment of worldliness,” which our culture lays upon us in order to “silence [the] shy, persistent, inner voice” that’s always telling us true meaning lies beyond this world. Loki may pursue Infinity Stones and ancient relics rather than the latest iPhone or Xbox, but he does so for essentially the same reasons that we chase our own objects of power.

Loki is searching for meaning through the acquisition of power and possessions, searching for assurance that he really does matter and that the enchantment’s promises are true. But the “glorious purpose” about which he constantly attempts to monologue is, in the end, merely to consume and gather unto himself—to get what he feels he deserves. It’s a terribly selfish purpose, one which renders other beings, human and Asgardian alike, as mere tools to be used or discarded as necessary.

We mere mortals feel the existential dread that our lives might not actually be as important to the universe as they are to us. As the old certainties of life have broken down, we’ve lost faith in our culture, our institutions, and even our God. Our world seems more splintered and uncertain than ever, which is why we seek meaning in material possessions and why the enchantment is so appealing. Loki has lost faith in certainties, as well: in the goodness and justice of Asgard’s order, and in any sort of overriding order or meaning in the universe, a notion he dismisses as a lie the weak tell to give themselves control.

A frost giant raised as an Asgardian, he has always felt like an outsider alone in the universe, which, ironically, is perhaps his most human characteristic. His lust for power and possessions is evidence that he has keenly felt that sensation of alienation that Christian thinkers have taken as evidence that we’re meant for more than this world. It’s a hunger for the very sort of transcendent meaning and purpose that Loki so vehemently denies. This hunger is what Lewis called “the desire for our own far off country.” This desire for belonging, purpose, and meaning cannot be satisfied in this world, or even in any of the myriad worlds that Loki visits in his adventures, which is what his journey eventually reveals.

While the Loki of the movie timeline had half a dozen films to grow and change, eventually becoming more selfless and something of an anti-hero, the Loki starring in Disney+’s Loki is instead plucked from just after the end of the first Avengers film. This means that the Loki we meet at the beginning of the show is the same supremely selfish, manipulative, and materialistic being who betrayed his brother and battled Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. He is a being whose desire for power and material gain remains undiminished by his recent defeat.

But the show wastes no time in throwing the charming “trickster god” into a new and completely unexpected reality that undermines his seemingly endless self-assurance. His contact with the Time Variance Authority (TVA) brings him face to face with the limitations of his philosophy and the smallness of his dreams. We quickly discover that this mysterious but highly efficient organization works to police the “sacred timeline,” the established and sanctioned flow of time. Their job is to capture and eliminate anyone who steps outside of the pre-established order of events and creates alternate timelines or branches, such as the one Loki created by stealing the Tesseract and escaping after the time-travel shenanigans of Avengers: Endgame (2019). 

As the TVA scoops up the baffled Asgardian and hurdles him headlong through an opaque, Kafka-esque bureaucratic process, he finds himself completely powerless before an authority the likes of which he’s never dreamed. Much to his chagrin, Loki discovers that there is an order beyond what he has known, and the walls of his own personal universe begin to quake and quiver at the revelation. Every part of his experience with the TVA works to undermine his faith in materialist assumptions and selfish philosophy, and the “enchantment of worldliness” begins to fray.

Before this inexorable power, Loki’s desperate protests are in vain. His defiant cry that “You ridiculous bureaucrats will not dictate how my story ends!” is met with the merciless declaration of the TVA’s Judge Renslayer (Rebecca Tourminet) that “It’s not your story Mr. Laufeyson; it never was.” Her casual dismissal reveals the truth that Loki has feared, which is the truth that we all fear: our little private universes, where we reign supreme, are only an illusion. The story is, indeed, really not about us, after all.

Throughout the MCU, Loki constantly asserts his own independence and identity, which is why his experience in the show shakes him so badly. In the first episode, he desperately declares “My choices are my own,” only to have it revealed, time and again, how that was just another lie he told himself. This is dramatically confirmed for the Asgardian when Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson), the TVA operative who takes charge of the wily Asgardian, rapidly shows him half a dozen different Loki variants of bewildering variety. Far from being a unique rebel spirit ennobled by his struggle against the universe, as he has viewed himself, Loki discovers that he is just one of many, a not-particularly-notable iteration of a not-particularly-notable life. Which is precisely what the “God of Mischief” has feared.

The master of misdirection realizes that all of the illusions he had built up around himself crumble in the face of the TVA’s true knowledge of his life and soul. He’s stripped, literally and figuratively, by the TVA’s impersonal devices, and then presented with a massive stack of paperwork and asked to confirm if it contains everything he’s ever said, only to find it growing with each new word he speaks in protest. Mobius evinces the same deep, invasive sort of knowledge, a greater understanding of Loki than he has himself.

With every lie and evasion, with every desperate maneuver, the Asgardian is revealed and laid bare by a power greater than his own. This is really driven home when he discovers that the supreme objects of his desire, the Infinity Stones, are of such cosmic insignificance to the TVA that they’re used as paperweights. This experience forces a partially humbled Loki to admit that his quest for power is “the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear,” ironically echoing his own earlier words.

Although the TVA is eventually revealed to be yet another illusion itself, its effect on Loki is still memorable and instructive, as it mirrors the effect of the actual ultimate authority upon the human soul. Christians believe that we must all at last come face-to-face with a power infinitely greater than our own, an order against which we strive in vain and which knocks our little universes to pieces by its mere existence. This is modeled in comedic fashion by Loki’s encounter with the TVA. For Loki, as hopefully for us, encounters with such a force begin the process of freeing him from the enchantment of materialism that has held him in its thrall.

His interactions with the TVA’s might reveal the hollowness and insufficiency of his materialistic, consumerist view of life, and contact with God can have the same impact on us in the real world. In an experience that could serve as a warning for us mere mortals, when Loki’s material power is removed, he has nothing to fall back upon, and with his belief in his own importance fractured, there’s nothing left to replace it. Yet over the course of the show, the Asgardian begins to escape the despair of his earlier experiences by discovering hints of greater meaning and purpose in precisely those things that he had once dismissed.

One of the tragedies of Loki’s materialism, like our own, is its isolating nature. The constant focus on self leaves little room for others within his life. Throughout the bulk of Loki’s MCU stories, his interactions with other beings are primarily through manipulation or bargaining since he views the universe in ultimately economical terms, as a series of transactional experiences. To Loki, reality is a competition between wills, a universal struggle for survival where one is either using or being used and people are only objects to serve his purposes and pleasures. As he sardonically confesses to Mobius after betraying his trust, “Welcome to the real world. Down there we’re awful to one another to get what we want.”

He constantly tries to bargain with and betray everyone from Mobius to the other version of himself, a female Loki variant named Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino). Ironically, the avatar of dishonesty is constantly telling other characters to trust him. This tactic results in constant humiliation as he finds that he has nothing of value to offer anyone. He’s also thwarted by his own dishonesty, created from his contempt for others, which is highlighted by Mobius’ question: “Why is it the people you can’t trust are always saying ‘trust me’?” Of course, by the time Loki discovers some of the actual truth about the TVA, he’s lied to Mobius so much that the agent won’t believe him.

After his shattering experience with the TVA, the show is essentially the story of Loki’s slow and torturous journey from selfish materialism, with its instrumental view of other people, to a richer, less cynical view of the universe that recognizes the intrinsic value of others. He moves from villain to anti-hero once more, becoming sympathetic in his search for a meaning to replace the philosophy that’s failed him. As a result, he begins to value the people he encounters, not as a means to an end, but for their own intrinsic worth. He even falls in love, albeit with Sylvie, who is, admittedly, another version of himself. But one step at a time. Perhaps more significantly, he forms an actual bond with Mobius that grows into an uneasy friendship.

Loki’s true turning point comes in the penultimate episode, as he and his allies try to escape from the Void at the End of Time. When he’s reunited with Mobius and Sylvie beyond all hope, Loki has grown so much that he’s finally able to speak honestly with them. He can call Mobius his friend as they part ways, a personal connection that he reviled at the beginning of his story. He also promises Sylvie that he will not betray her, and in the process, finally confesses the faults and the price of the selfishness that had dominated his life: “I betrayed everyone who ever loved me. I betrayed my father, my brother… my home. I know what I did. And I know why I did it.”

Yet, he is able to add an even more important revelation, truly declaring “that’s not who I am anymore.” For the first time in the series, we see Loki speak honestly, without a trace of irony, deception, or manipulation, and we see him forge real connections with other beings.

He’s finally able to be honest with both himself and his companions, and when Sylvie proposes that, if they can topple the TVA, he may yet find the throne he has always desired, Loki replies with dripping sarcasm, “And then I’d finally be happy.” At last, he has recognized that his pursuit of material power and possessions could never truly satisfy, that his heart yearns for something greater.

His newfound outlook is put to the test when Sylvie seeks to enchant the immensely powerful Alioth, the massive cloud-like monster that guards their temporal prison, so they can continue their search for the power behind the TVA. Not only does Loki decide to stay and share her danger, but when the beast threatens her, he risks his own life for hers, finally putting someone else’s good ahead of his own.

It is here, at the End of Time, that Loki begins to realize what his older counterpart (Richard E. Grant) had realized long ago. While our Loki risks his life, his older variant actually sacrifices his own so that the others may succeed. At a key moment, he conjures an illusion of Asgard, a symbol of the home that all of the Loki variants have lost through their selfishness, and distracts the behemoth. In a particularly poignant scene that combines absurdity and pathos as only Marvel can, the older Loki, in his ridiculous-looking comic-accurate costume, faces down Alioth, defiantly shouting “Glorious purpose!” as he meets his end.

The older Loki’s sacrifice reveals another truth, one that’s deeper than the selfishness that’s defined all of the Loki variants: the only truly “glorious purpose” comes from serving something greater than ourselves. Here, the Christian fan is reminded that God offers the most glorious of all purposes in His service, one that is beyond any to be found in this, or any world.

Loki does not take its titular character quite so far, but it does take him a long way down the road of redemption, and away from the consumerist materialism that dominated his life when he was first snatched up by the TVA. The season finale reveals just how far he has come. When He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), the true force behind the TVA, offers him more power than he had ever dreamed of, the “God of Mischief” is not only able to place the good of his friends above his own, but the good of strangers as well. Realizing that the reward has no real, lasting value as well as the terrible cost of vengeance, he acts selflessly, though ultimately futilely, as he tries and fails to stop Sylvie from taking her vengeance. Greeted at long last with what he has always believed to be his heart’s desire, he refuses, recognizing that his “glorious purpose” can end only in destruction.

Love for others may not be the entirety of Christian philosophy, but it is a good start, a lesser good than God, but still a good. Thus, it can lead us further from ourselves and closer to God, just as it eventually leads Loki away from his selfish materialism and to greater moral and spiritual heights. The Asgardian gets closer to a real purpose by focusing less on his own existence and more on the existence of those he loves. Eventually, he even develops the ability to value other beings in the abstract, not as tools or possessions, but as ends in-and-of themselves.

The universe imagined in Loki is a decidedly non-Christian picture, and true order and objective meaning remain remote, beyond even the very end of time itself. However, this may not be as alien to Christians as it might seem. For what can the world truly offer us to justify itself? Our search for meaning must always take us beyond the stars, beyond the very walls of the universe itself, and outside of the material reality which forever, in the final extreme, must fail us.

Christians believe in precisely the sort of order that Loki constantly strives against, an order created by a God who provides meaning and significance for our lives when we are in a relationship with Him. Yet the Christian order and plan is one against which there is no hope of contending, not even for gods. Although Marvel’s Loki doesn’t come face to face with his Creator at the End of Time, he does discover the ultimate, inevitable failure of the selfish materialism with which he replaced transcendent meaning. In the end, his journey shows us a path away from ourselves and toward the true “glorious purpose” we find in serving God.

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