Should We Brace Ourselves For a Twist With Sophia di Martino’s Sylvie?

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You know, the Internet’s a crazy place. Has you thinking one thing—you’re just so sure of it— then boom! Turns out you couldn’t have been more wrong. Back to the drawing board.

This feeling is familiar to Marvel fans—including yours truly—who spend their waking hours convincing themselves that they know the next decade of Kevin Feige’s master plan, all before they’ve watched whatever Disney+/Marvel episode is right in front of them. And it looks like the recent episodes of Loki all had us in this perilous position. For some context: when we first saw actress Sophia di Martino on set of Loki, we all were convinced that she was Lady Loki—the horns are all the evidence you need! Think again. With the debut of Episode Three of Loki this morning, we finally got to spend some time with di Martino’s maybe-villain, horns and all. But she wants you to know that she is not a Loki. Or at least uses an alias so no one calls her a Loki. She goes by Sylvie, a name which—even after this episode—has the comic-book history to tell us what this character’s deal is.

It’s hard to imagine di Martino’s Sylvie not being at least somewhat inspired by a fan-favorite character from the comic books: Sylvie Lushton, a.k.a. The Enchantress. In the comics, we first meet Lushton as a teenager in Broxton, Oklahoma—shortly after the Asgardians make their home there. She wakes up one morning and finds that, holy s***, she has powers. Sorcery, magic, transmutation, Wanda Maximoff-esque hand beams, etc. She takes up the mantle of the Enchantress, after the Asgardian Amora, and joins the Avengers at one point. But Lushton eventually finds out that she was created by none other than Loki himself, who wanted to create a mortal being for funsies. Over the course of the comics, Enchantress is both a hero and a villain, so it’s hard to tell how, exactly, she’ll fit into Loki. It’s possible that Lushton is merely being adapted as a Loki variant.

Or, maybe Loki will stay true to the comics and reveal Lushton as a version of the character who is traveling through time and space to accomplish some kind of a mission. Given what we learn in Episode Three of Loki, it seems like her goal is at least to destroy the TVA. We don’t really know…why. Yet. Sylvie also plays coy with her origin story—like Loki, she was adopted, but unlike Loki, was told she was adopted right away—but we don’t really know the deal with her foster parents. Maybe some strange twist is in store, where her comic-book story comes into play—and it’s revealed that Loki created Sylvie somehow. With all of the space-time-superhero bullshittery going on in this show, we’re not ready to attempt to comprehend that possibility yet.

Anyway. So there you go. Sylvie, Marvel fans. Marvel fans, Sylvie. Did you really think that the show about the God of Mischief wouldn’t have some tricks up its sleeve?

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